


Powdermill lane

by silvervelour



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: 1991-1999, 90’s au, Big time jumps, F/F, Lesbian AU, alternatively titled; trixie’s coming of age story, katya drives a pick up truck, katya runs art classes at the local community centre, small seaside town, too much sexual tension, trixie becomes a kindergarten teacher, trixie is homeschooled
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-01-31 09:13:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12678870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvervelour/pseuds/silvervelour
Summary: The sand beneath her feels like it might give way at any possible moment, leave Trixie to slip further away from the clutches of reality that she barely has a hold of, as it is.She hopes that if it did that she’d end up in the sea that’s getting closer to her again, the tide returning to the shore. She wants to float, feel the weight of Katya on her thighs be lifted, even as Trixie pulls her closer subconsciously.





	1. 1991

**Author's Note:**

> another au?? will i stop writing them?? probably not but,, this is a concept that i’m kind of in love with. 90’s small seaside town au that will be 4(!!) chapters long, set in 91,92,97,99. i promise that the plot will make sense as it moves along (aka trixya who knew each other at the end of high school and then reunite years later) (heavily inspired by the song sovereign light cafe, by keane, i’d definitely check it out!!) anyway,, instead of me rambling, i hope you enjoy this!! ♡

Trixie can smell smoke.

It’s in the air around her, thick and dense as it emanates from the fire that’s glowing, burning in the sand in front of her. It clouds her vision, blocks her nostrils, so that her eyes slip closed when they meet the rays of the moon that are beating down upon her; on to the entirety of the beach.

She wants to put it, the fire out, douse it in the cup of lemonade seltzer that she’s gripping tightly in her chilly hands that are speckled with blues and purples from the cold night air. She knows she can’t do so, and restrains herself, against the judgemental gazes of the company of friends that she knows but _doesn’t_ , really.

They’re all friends of friends and distant acquaintances that Trixie doesn’t care for, not with the feeling of the grains of sand trickling between her toes that are free from her heeled sandals which have left blisters on her heels.

It feels like time slipping away, as she’s engulfed by drunken strangers and the sweet smell of burnt umber. She seeks to grasp back, clutch at handfuls of sand next to her thighs, stop each particle from dropping back to the ground.

It doesn’t work, and Trixie’s left glancing around, spots the only person she really knows out of the group of twenty something - _Kim_ \- shotgunning a can of Budweiser that Trixie already knows that the other girl will regret in the morning when she wakes up with a thumping headache and her lips sticky from alcohol. She knows it’s not her first can either, or even her fifth, that she’s consumed with sips of cheap vodka from a paper bag that one of the boys had smuggled from his parents mini bar, probably.

The thought is laughable, and Trixie’s tilting her head to the sky, allowing the light breeze to kiss at her cheeks and prickle at the hairs on the back of her neck. Her hair that’s cropped to her shoulders is bouncy in curls, slowly matting together from the salt that’s risen from the sea that’s far away from her, now, the tide having moved outwards.

Trixie can smell smoke.

It’s in the air around her, thick and dense as it emanates from the fire that’s glowing, burning in the sand in front of her -

and the cigarette that balances precariously in the hand of the girl that’s been sitting next to her for the whole night. She’s unapologetic about it as she exhales, lets the wind carry the second hand smoke towards Trixie, where she has to try not to cough from the fumes, choke on the pungent stench of tobacco.

She’s been half tempted to knock the ignited stick out of the girls hand on more than one occasion, when she’s waved it too close to Trixie’s face, has let ash fall carelessly onto Trixie’s outstretched legs where it’s burned her skin more than she cares to admit.

The girl doesn’t seem to care either, when she’s cackling at something somebody on the other side of her has said, as she rips open the plastic wrap to her second pack of cigarettes.

Trixie doesn’t know how she can chain smoke them and still be left with a voice that works, albeit husky and ragged, broken and disjointed. It’s insanity, Trixie decides. _Ridiculous_ , almost, because she’s the only person that’s so much as glanced at Trixie the whole night, sent a reassuring smile her way with her lips that are painted scarlet, fake blood staining her cheeks that she’d painted on for their Halloween gathering earlier in the evening, undoubtedly.  
  
Her hair looks similar to Trixie’s. Blonde and unruly, curls cascading down to her shoulders with wispy strands framing her face. The only real differences are that it’s a shade or two darker and she has a fringe; bluntly cut so that it hides her eyebrows that Trixie’s _sure_ are expressive, and as dark as her roots that are growing through the artificial blonde.

Her hands move wildly and animatedly as she talks, and Trixie sees foreshadowings of the ash flying from her newly lit cigarette and to her face, flickering alarmingly in her mind. So she turns away, keeps a mothering eye on Kim who’s crushing her now empty can in her fist, throwing it to the floor triumphantly.

Trixie snickers to herself, observes Kim and another girl who Trixie doesn’t know, watches as they link arms and walk to sit on a nearby rock that they’ve covered with an old picnic blanket that’s seen better days. The edges are frayed, and Trixie already knows that Kim’s going to scrape up her knees, will make Trixie bandage her up the next morning, leaving the only girl that’s not hung over wondering why she hadn’t chose a drink with more than zero percent alcohol that tastes of innocence and emptiness.

Trixie sighs, wiggles her still half full cup into a little hole she’s dug into the sand with her fingertips, left grains stuck under her nails. It feels gritty, as does the sand at Trixie’s feet when she buries them further into the mound at the end of her legs, until she can’t see past her ankles that are adorned with anklets and specks of face paint.

The stains remind her of the heavy makeup clogging up the pores on her face, and she rubs her hands across the butterflies on her cheeks subconsciously. She wants to wash it off, jump into the waves of the sea to do so until her skin is left bare where it’ll be able to breathe again. She can feel the paint cracking, and can hear a voice mumbling brokenly next to her, too.

She turns, catches the eyes of the girl that’s still sat next to her. She’s rotated her body noticeably, so that she’s facing Trixie’s side, has her hand that’s holding her twenty first, or maybe it’s her twenty second cigarette, balancing on Trixie’s thigh.

She’s looking at Trixie expectantly, but Trixie’s completely out of it, focused only on the cold of the breeze and the warmth of this girls hand that’s surely going to drop ash onto her legs, watch it spill onto the floor.

Arching an eyebrow, Trixie crosses her arms over her chest. The denim of her dungarees doesn’t feel thick enough under the girls scrutiny, and the breeze that prickles at her skin, causes her bare arms to shiver to the extent that she wishes momentarily that she’d thrown on something other than a tank top under the overalls in order to keep her warm.

“Well?”. The girl’s grinning lightly, just enough so that the tips of her front teeth are showing. They’re dotted with red lipstick, but Trixie’s not going to tell her, not when she’s shuffling even closer so that Trixie can feel the hard rubber soles of her Dr Marten boots digging into her outer thighs.

Trixie frowns, fantasises briefly about throwing the girls boots into the fire and watching them melt into puddles of plastic and crumbs of charcoal leather. The thoughts sadistic, but it doesn’t stop her from continuing to think about it as she states down at the girl with eyes filled with distain.

“What?”. Trixie snaps, pulls her legs up to her chest whilst pushing the girls hand away nonchalantly.

Trixie doesn’t want her touching her legs, or anywhere else, if she thinks about it. Doesn’t want to leave at the end of the night smelling of bitter smoke and regret that will encompass her the second she dives under the duvet covers of her cramped, single bed.

Trixie frowns at the red lips that are chuckling, curving upwards to form dimples underneath the apples of her cheeks. She hates the way that it makes her annoyance lessen, too, how the girl’s smirking, unbelievably pleased with herself when she sees a glimmer of a half hearted smile flash across Trixie’s face.

“I asked who you were here with, _duh_ ”. The girls lips pop off of the end of her cigarette, where she’s left a ring of red; _fiery_.

She rolls her eyes, and Trixie’s back to wanting to stamp on her carton of cigarettes within seconds, even as her stomach flips, wishes she could already be back in the confines of her bedroom, that’s all pink and lavender and _lemon_.

Wrapping her arms around her knees, Trixie shrugs, motions vaguely over towards Kim with a nod of her head. Kim’s still sitting on the same rock that she’d perched on earlier, is leaning into the girl that Trixie’s taken to simply addressing as _legs_ in her head, because god, she notes, they’re long and could probably run laps around everybody here.

“Kim”. Trixie spits bluntly, leaves the girl to hum her understanding as she extinguishes her cigarette in the sand, watches it fizzle out with a hiss when the flame diminishes.

She seems to take the hint, too, and shuffles backwards until her boots are no longer leaving indentations in Trixie’s thigh, that’s glinting with blonde baby hairs in the barely there light of the street lamps that line the boardwalk at the end of the beach. She copies Trixie’s position instead, brings her knees to her chest. She rests her chin on them, then her cheek, twists her head so that she’s smiling over at Trixie lopsidedly.

“The girl who’s with Naomi, yeah?, _oh_!-”. The girl startles herself, tucks her hair behind her ear with her free hand, the one that isn’t busy clicking at the flint of a blue lighter.

“-Katya, by the way”.

She elaborates, fluffs her hair a little with both hands once she’s set the lighter down in front of her and watches it roll a distance away from her feet. Trixie finds herself nodding affirmatively, loosens her grip that she has on her knees and allows them to slump noticeably, so that they’re no longer pressed as tightly to her aching sternum.

“Trixie”. The lighter blonde responds, purses her lips tightly as she’s whacked by an unexpected gust of wind. Katya’s chuckling lowly at her, at the strands of hair that are refusing to stay where they were placed behind her head, instead choosing to glue themselves to her sticky, tacky glitter lipgloss.

Trixie pulls the tendrils free, tucks them back behind her ears where they belong, until her hairstyle is back to looking more similar to Katya’s than she’d like it to; _minus the fringe_

Katya kisses at her own teeth, runs her dry pink tongue over her top lip. They’re still painted red and look as coarse as they did when Trixie had first raked her eyes from the baby hairs sticking to her forehead, down to her worn-out boots earlier in the night. Trixie guesses the motion was meant to hydrate them, allow her to grin wider without feeling her bottom lip cracking irritably, but she doubts it’s worked.

She watches as Katya sucks her bottom lip under her teeth, that Trixie can just tell are white, straight and linear, even in the dark of the beach and autumnal bloom. Katya’s eyebrows furrow, but then her glassy, fazed our eyes flicker back up towards Trixie, who’s nibbling at the inside of her cheek subconsciously.

Releasing her lip, Katya clicks her shoulder. Trixie jerks at the sound, connects the noise of shoulders, lips and the earlier puff of Katya’s cigarettes in her mind. She blinks rapidly, sinks her legs further so that they’re not bent up at all, anymore, stretches them out directly in front of her body.

Katya watches her do so, trains her eyes on the soft muscle of Trixie’s calf that’s prickled with goosebumps and the faintest regrowth of blonde hair where she’s neglected to shave for a couple of days because really, Trixie’s established, she doesn’t _have_ to.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around before”. Katya states curiously, arches an eyebrow when Trixie shrugs her shoulders carelessly. Trixie knows that she’s expecting an answer, either one that’s developed or one that isn’t.

Either way, Trixie’s not keen on giving one to her, when she’s still undecided whether she wants to be under Katya, moaning her name audibly, or stamping on her cigarettes, crushing her heart and shattering her sense of self worth that Trixie can already tell radiates from her skin and her egotistical smile.

Trixie sighs, plasters a faint smile across her face. She pins it to her cheeks, feels it falter when Katya’s back in her space again, resting her denim clad legs comfortably across Trixie’s bare ones. The material itches at Trixie’s skin, and Trixie’s close to telling to to stop when she reaches for her cigarettes and her lighter again. But then she’s blowing the smoke into Trixie’s face, making her eyes water, and Trixie’s clenching her thighs together at the sheer thought of Katya breathing down her throat, onto her neck.

“I uh- _no_ , I don’t go to school here”. Trixie explains, places her sweaty palm on top of Katya’s knee. She hopes it doesn’t darken the light denim, prays it won’t leave the temporary shape of her fingers and thumb that are gripping the muscle tighter with every exhale of smoke that’s released into the air around her.

Katya looks confused, perplexed, as she lets out a longer exhale than Trixie’s witnessed the whole night, lets it flutter Trixie’s eyelashes against her cheek and brow bone. She’s finished the cigarette before Trixie thinks she’s had a chance to ingrain the image in her mind, and doesn’t go about lighting another one like she thought Katya would have.

She’s placing her hand on top of Trixie’s instead, slotting their fingers together. Trixie’s are a little squishy in comparison to Katya’s, whose are long and lithe, but Katya likes the feeling of softness.

It’s overwhelmingly feminine, as is Trixie’s perfume that she can smell even through the smoke of her Marlborough’s. It’s distinctly sweet, she notes, and figures that Trixie had probably bought it from the little family ran boutique at the quaint mall in town that sells everything vanilla, sugar and _syrup_.

“Oh, _no_?”. Katya drawls, her voice inquisitive. She’s speaking higher, her voice breathier now that she’s closer to Trixie, leaning until their shoulders bump together and her thighs press against the outside of Trixie’s.

Their bodies are reverberating heat, scorching rays pumping between them as Katya taps her short nails across the lacquered surface of Trixie’s slightly longer ones. The light taps and clicks fill their eardrums, become the main focus amongst background noise of drunken giggles and chaotic raucousness.

Trixie shakes her head, takes in the sight of Katya’s eyelashes that are clumped heavily with mascara as she narrows her eyes, stares Trixie down intimidatingly. Her eyebrows that poke through her fringe are dark and defined, and succeed in emphasising the blue in her irises and the whites of her orbs that appear glassier as the night progresses.

“No-“. Confirms Trixie. She buries her free hand in the sand next to her hip, keeps the other interlocked with Katya’s even as Katya directs them away from her knee and to the empty space between their chests.

Trixie knows that Katya’s probably having a hard time keeping still, seems like the type of person that’s constantly moving in some way, expressing themselves with movements and over emphasised speech. So she allows Katya to flip her hand over in her grasp in order to analyse Trixie’s knuckles, where they’re slightly red and white from the cold.

“-I’ve always been homeschooled”. She finishes, grimaces as her voice meets her own ears. It sounds pretentious, overachieved, but Katya’s looking at her earnestly, nodding her head encouragingly as she squeezes at Trixie’s hand, then her wrist.

The thrum of Trixie’s pulse quickens robotically under Katya’s thumb, akin to the chest of a hummingbird. Trixie swallows, can see Katya do the same when her neck protrudes, bobs rhythmically as she swallows a further once, twice.

It’s a drop that can almost be felt in Trixie’s own throat, when she takes her eyes over the makeup that isn’t quite blended down the length of Katya’s neck or jawline. Trixie thinks she could scrape it off easily, if she tried, decides that she wants to get the chance to do so with Katya’s head between her legs, hands looped in the reigns of her hair.

Leaning closer to Katya, Trixie watches closely as Katya’s fingertips begin to travel up the length of her forearm, to her elbow and then her soft bicep, where she pinches the skin between her finger and thumb. She’s moving even further up, then, brushing at the crease of Trixie’s underarm and then her shoulder, her collarbone and her jawline that’s all tense from her grinding her back teeth.

“How do you know Kim?”. Katya presses her thumb to Trixie’s bottom lip, feels it slip under the lack of friction in the glittery gloss that the lighter blonde has coating her lips.

Trixie’s stuck somewhere between wanting to bite at it, at Katya’s thumb, and wishing she had the nerve to suck it into her mouth, swirl her tongue across the calloused skin that scratches slightly wherever she touches.

She doesn’t do either of those things, instead allows Katya’s thumb to rest there, glide back and forth until Trixie’s positive that her lipstick must be messed up, as dishevelled as she knows her hair has become in the gusty gales that have heightened in velocity and strength.

The pressure being exerted on her lip can be felt all the way down to the tremors in her thighs, her core that’s throbbing with heat. Trixie doesn’t want Katya to stop touching her, on her face or anywhere, if she thinks about it. She’s gone from wanting to exacerbate the girl, crush her beloved cigarettes and destroy her timely boots, to wanting to have her kiss her, fuck her deeply; all within the space of what Trixie knows _can’t_ have been more than ten minutes.

She thinks it’s _hot_ , though she shouldn’t, and when Katya’s moving her thumb away from her lip, pressing it into her cheek instead where she’s leaving an imprint of the light pink gloss, Trixie finds herself chasing Katya’s caresses that have almost disappeared in order for her to answer.

“We work together at the arcade”. Trixie stammers, feels her eyes beginning to water when Katya pulls at the baby hairs growing from her temples. Her thighs clench together harder with every tug that Katya manages, until Katya’s lifting herself off of the ground, crawling across centimetres of sand so that she can straddle Trixie, sit on her wide thighs.

Trixie’s eyes bug noticeably, and she’s forced to relax the muscles in her legs so that Katya can sit comfortably, without the jitters and twitches bound to be happening in her thighs. Katya’s a little bony, but Trixie can feel just from her settling that her ass is perky, rounder than the rest of her body. She likes it, when Katya scoots forward just enough to allow her breasts to press up against Trixie’s.

They’re like the rest of her, small and yet to scale, so that her and Trixie contrast in every way she can think of apart from the hair upon their heads.

Her eyes are blue, oceanic with hints of algae, but Trixie’s are a deep brown, chocolatey like the freckles that adorn her upper cheeks and nose. Her hips are wider and her legs are longer, too, and Katya already knows that if they were both standing that she’d be inches shorter than Trixie, whose skin is supple and unmarked in comparison to her own.

“A workin’ girl, _huh_?”. Breathes Katya, pressing her pelvis down into Trixie’s to ensure that Trixie knows what she’s getting at. Katya wants to fuck her; _simply_. Needs to drag the vivacious blonde back to her pickup truck, lay her down in the back seats to make her moan, until her breath’s fogging up the dusty glass of her windows.

She wants to take Trixie back to her place, also, because she knows that nobody else will be home, and is certain that Trixie would feel more comfortable moaning into her tattered grey bed sheets for her house plants and cacti to hear, rather than the sticky leather of her car seats that are covered in Cola stains.

It’s not necessary, she realises, because Trixie’s ready, is already wrapping her arms around Katya’s waist, pulling her closer and twisting her fingers in the elastane fabric of her red, boxy T-shirt.

Nodding her head, Trixie drags her nails over the skin of Katya’s back that’s left exposed to the air between the waistband of her jeans and her aforementioned T-shirt.

Katya groans, and Trixie can hear it echoing throughout the hallways of her mind, knocking on doors and letting itself in. Faint screeches make up the background noise, drunken slurs that Trixie’s decided that she doesn’t care for, not even Kim’s, with Katya grinning down at her, sporting bleary eyes.

“Arcades must be tiring”. Katya mumbles, her voice ragged and insinuating. She’s resting her forehead against Trixie’s, can feel every movement of Trixie’s eyebrows beneath her own. She’s furrowing them, then lowering them, nodding her head in response to Katya’s statement as she finds her nails digging relentlessly into the muscles of Katya’s back.

The sand beneath her feels like it might give way at any possible moment, leave Trixie to slip further away from the clutches of reality that she barely has a hold of, as it is.

She hopes that if it did that she’d end up in the sea that’s getting closer to her again, the tide returning to the shore. She wants to float, feel the weight of Katya on her thighs be lifted, even as Trixie pulls her closer subconsciously.

“They can be, yeah”. Trixie blinks up towards Katya, her eyes crossing. She can see where Katya’s eye makeup has smudged, eyeliner having transferred to below her bottom lashes and beyond, that are clumpy and stuck together with what Trixie’s already assumed is days worth of amounted waterproof mascara.

Balancing her hands on Trixie’s shoulders, katya digs her thumbs into the tense tendons of Trixie’s collarbones, the juncture where they meet her neck. It makes Trixie’s posture slump and relax instantly, draws a blissful sigh from between her parted lips that Katya’s millimetres away from, that are puffing out warm air onto her chin.

Katya digs her thumbs in further, harder and with more pressure that makes Trixie nibble at her bottom lip. She leaves little indentations, red spots that threaten to flow over with blood if she were to bite any harder.

It’s a sight that makes Katya squeeze her own thighs around Trixie’s, her knees hugging the soft flesh of Trixie’s hips that are covered by the denim of her cut-off dungarees.

“Poor baby”. Katya simpers, almost mockingly. She taps Trixie on the nose briefly with her index finger, watches wrinkles form in the bridge of it when Trixie scrunches it up jokingly.

Trixie curls her fingers into the hairs at the nape of Katya’s neck haphazardly in indignation, tugs on them with more force than she’d care to admit and sends Katya’s jaw canting upwards. Her nose almost hits Trixie’s, but Trixie’s giggling into her chest, pressing hot wet kisses to her exposed décolletage.

It makes Katya shiver, forces her mind back on track and her limbs back into gear. She’s standing, then, towering over Trixie’s still sitting being as the lighter blondes mouth gapes, searches for words that don’t yet exist.

“My car-“. Katya starts, outstretches her arm towards Trixie so that Trixie’s able to watch her bicep bulge out from under the cuff of her T-shirt that’s risen upwards.

Trixie takes ahold of it wordlessly, slots her fingers between Katya’s until she’s being pulled up to stand on shaky, unstable legs. Her heeled sandals still lay discarded, and Trixie’s half tempted to leave them there, to be washed away by the powerful waves.

She won’t do it, though, because they’re her pink holographic ones that are less than a month old, and she loves them more than she thinks she’s ever loved a pair of shoes. They’re her, _Trixie_ , undeniably so, so she picks them up, braces them in the fold of one arm.

Clicking her bones, Katya straightens her spine. She’s right, like she knew she would be, about being shorter than Trixie. Even with her boots still on her feet, rubbing at her heels, she’s an obvious two or three inches shorter. It’s not much, but it’s enough to make her have to crane her neck to make direct eye contact with Trixie, and to make Trixie feel the need to slouch in order to be closer to Katya’s height.

It’s both endearing and sexual, sensual, and Katya’s teaching up to tuck Trixie’s hair back behind her ears. The tips of of them are red and cold, her lobes glinting gold with tiny, dangling earrings. Trixie leans into her touch, like she’s found herself doing for the past however long, only stands fully upright when Katya steps backwards.

“-The green pickup in the parking lot, I’ll wait there for a ‘lil while if you want”. Katya’s waving her hand in the direction of the parking lot that she’s mentioned, grinning mischievously as she begins walking away instantly.

There’s a skip in her step and a gust of breeze in her hair, making Trixie feels as if she’s looking at an illusion; a contrived image that she’s managed to conjure up in her mind. She knows that she hasn’t, from the sensation of her nipples that are so hard that they hurt, brushing against the denim of her dungarees, and her underwear that’s wet, sticking to her.

She’s stumbling as she walks, observes Katya cranking open the door to her pickup truck that Trixie thinks must be at least ten, or fifteen years old. If she strains her ears she can hear the engine chug to life as she’s bidding a half hearted goodbye to Kim, letting her know she’s leaving.

The vibrations travel directly to her core, cause goosebumps to arise on the skin of her bare arms and legs, up each individual vertebrae of her spine, too. Kim notices, and smirks up at Trixie from where she has her head resting on the girl - _Naomi’s_ \- shoulder, a patchwork denim jacket wrapped around the both of them.

She simply laughs at how shaken Trixie seems, with her hair slightly dishevelled and her thighs pressing closer together than they should. She sends her off with a wink, and a promise that she’d call Trixie’s home before work the next day; at _four_ in the afternoon.

Trixie’s grateful for the late shift, especially when she’s trudging up the bank towards Katya’s pick up truck, the headlights blasting into her eyes and blinding her momentarily.

It’s already nearing the early hours of the morning, around one or two, and Trixie’s well aware that if the remainder of the night pans out the way she thinks it will, how she hopes it’s going to, that she won’t want to fling herself out of bed until well past noon.

She’ll want to stay curled up in soft bed sheets, in Katya’s arms, if the darker blonde will allow her. She can imagine Katya’s duvet to be the same colour as her truck, forest green, or maybe they’re plain, white or black or grey. Trixie knows it’s irrelevant, but her thoughts are wild and incoherent, an amalgamation of confusion and lust that refuse to quell with the duelling that’s taking place within her head.

A sigh escapes her lips as Katya eyes her through the front windscreen of the car, her elbows resting on the slim steering wheel and her upper row of teeth biting into her bottom lip. She wretches open the door with little difficulty, closes it swiftly once she’s dropped her sandals onto the carpeted floor in front of her and buckled her seatbelt that’s frayed near the head rest.

The fabric grazes her neck irritatingly, but the soft mats on the floor soothe the skin of her bare feet that have walked across sand, rocks, and wooden board walks. She scrunches up her toes, feels the navy fibres weave their ways across the lacquered surface of her nails.

She relaxes in the seat, can feel it cupping the contours of her back that’s aching with having sat cross legged on a sandy floor for such a long duration of time. Her body is ready to sink back into a pillowy haven, feel strong arms bracketing themselves around her head.

Katya smiles at her, and at the thoughts she can see spinning on a pin wheel in Trixie’s eyes, through the warmth of the air that surrounds them. It’s a definitive contrast to the weather outside, hot and humid; _stuffy_.

It’s not cold in the slightest, because Katya had ignited the heating minutes prior, turned it up to its highest setting, knowing that Trixie would join her. She wanted it to be warm and snug for the brown eyed girl when she did, because she’s decided categorically that she’s not going to fuck Trixie in the back seats, not when the leather of the seats will make the both of them sweat uncomfortably, leave linear marks on Trixie’s back.

She won’t do it, not when she has a perfectly good bed back at her place, or at least a couch that’s scattered with misplaced cushions. It’s only a twenty minute drive, roughly. A journey that Katya thinks she’ll be able to manage in just over fifteen on the quiet of the backroads at this time of night.

Few cars will be venturing out, the majority of the town being grandparents and young children that are already safely tucked up in their beds and knitted blankets, holding little to no interest in the festivities of Halloween.

The street lamps and her headlights will guide her way, into her neighbourhood and further to her driveway. Solar powered garden lamps will illuminate the pathway up to her front door in a similar manner, stepping stones that will allow her to pull Trixie in behind her.

 _Trixie_.

Katya smiles over towards her once again, places her hand high on Trixie’s thigh. She squeezes knowingly, hard, once, until Trixie’s nodding her head, whispering _drive_ over the low hum of the static radio that Katya’s switched on.

 _Prince’s Get Off_ is playing, and both Katya and Trixie decide that it’s ironically fitting for the entirety of the situation. Katya’s itching to fuck Trixie, and Trixie’s on edge waiting to get fucked and vice versa, to the extent that Katya has no qualms about doing what Trixie’s told her to; to _drive_.

She does so, presses her foot down on the gas pedal so rapidly that it sends Trixie flying forward just a little, until she’s laughing loudly, gripping at Katya’s hand that sits on her thigh for the whole fifteen minute journey.

*****

Katya’s house looks a lot like Trixie imagined it would.

It’s modest, nestled in the corner of a neighbourhood that Trixie’s vaguely familiar with. She associates it with suburban families and soccer moms that she’s never understood and probably never will, with their high ponytails, padded gilets and white picket fences.

Trixie can picture them eyeing Katya suspiciously if they see her around, clad in her high waisted jeans and sports T-shirts that don’t fit her frame, her fringe gapping in the breeze blowing against her. It’s a fact that she’s familiar with in her own neighbourhood, where grandmothers will look on disapprovingly if they witness Trixie wearing a shirt that’s too low cut, or if she’s neglected to throw a bra on that day.

The thought tickles Trixie on the balls of her feet as she pads up the pathway to Katya’s red, obnoxious front door, across dandelions and cobblestones. Katya’s unlocking the door with fumbling hands and keys that Trixie’s certain have too many key rings dangling from them, peeking her head around the corner to ensure that her assumptions about nobody being home are correct.

They are, and Trixie’s following her through the short hallway to the living room where Katya tugs on her hand, pulls her still bare foot across the hard wood of the ground beneath her. There’s a small tapestry carpet in the centre of the room, and Trixie’s grateful for its placement when her feet meet it, having left her sandals in the passenger seat of Katya’s car.

She wants to sit down already, and it seems like Katya’s on her wavelength as she beckons Trixie towards the couch that she’s already sitting on with a come hither motion of her finger - those fingers, Trixie wants them on her and inside of her.

She shivers.

Trixie’s not hesitant, is sauntering confidently and unfazed over towards Katya and perching herself, so that she’s straddling her lap before Katya can blink up towards her, flash that same grin that has Trixie weak in the knees, hips, everywhere.

It’s nice being on top of Katya, where she’s able to feel simultaneously in control and tiny in the barriers of Katya’s arms. They’re wrapped around her, reaching into her dungarees and tapping fingertips rhythmically up and down her spine. Trixie wants Katya to pull her even closer, to strip her of her aforementioned dungarees, discard them on the oak flooring and push her down onto the couch, so that her head is reclined against the arm rest.

“Trixie”. Katya groans, weaves the fingers of one hand into the mass of hair upon Trixie’s head. She toys with it for a while, secures it into a sloppy bun with a hair tie that she’d had placed around her wrist. Trixie can tell it’s been there, on her athletic wrist for a while, from the tan line that’s been exposed.

Katya’s skin is pale, but underneath the dent of the hair tie it’s even paler, almost icy, Trixie acknowledges. It’s _stupid_ , because Katya’s hands are so warm on her skin, heavy and heated and right. She doesn’t understand the logistics of it, because Katya should be freezing, from having one of her hands wrapped around the leather steering wheel of the car; but she’s _not_.

She’s pulling off Trixie’s dungarees with a nimbleness that’s admirable, undoing the buckles and tapping Trixie’s ass for her to lift it when she needs to slide the bottom half over her thighs and down her legs.

Trixie settles back down with ease, and Katya’s drooling at the sight of her in just her underwear and her thin tank top. Both are a shade of grey, with lace, that emphasises the soft tan that still remains painted across Trixie’s skin from the rays of the summer sun. It makes Katya groan again, so that Trixie can feel the vibrations of it travel through her breasts from where Katya’s takes to kissing the swell of them.

Trixie pulls off Katya’s T-shirt effortlessly when the darker blonde pulls away, and it draws an audible gasp from between Trixie’s lips. She’s not wearing a bra, much like Trixie, and her rosy brown nipples stand out, protrude, against the softness of her milky flesh.

Palming at them lightly, Trixie allows Katya to work off her tank top. It’s discarded rapidly onto the floor into the growing pile of clothing that’s made up of her dungarees and both hers and Katya’s shirts. They capture her attention momentarily, but she’s forced to forget about them when Katya’s lips wrap around her nipple, her tongue flicking pointedly across the sensitive bundle of nerves.

The whimper that it draws from Trixie cracks in her throat, breaks off when it’s swallowed by Katya’s lips that are back on her mouth, kissing her with renewed vigour and enthusiasm. Trixie’s hips are grinding down onto Katya’s, the sweet friction of her denim jeans against Trixie’s cotton panties proving to be more than Trixie’s able to handle, as she bucks up into the touch of Katya’s hands.

They’re sliding down the front of her torso, stroking over her breasts and then her ribs, her waist and then her hips - _those_ hips - that are being dug into deliciously by the lace of Trixie’s underwear that are just a little too tight for her.

Katya wants to bite into the soft skin, leave teeth marks and bruises so that Trixie will see them when she showers the next day, rubs soapy hands across them, but she can’t. Not with Trixie grasping ahold of her wrist, guiding it down to the juncture between her legs that’s fluttering with palpitations, dripping with anticipation.

“You want it?”. Katya’s drawls, bumps her knuckles skilfully up against Trixie, through her damp underwear that’s turning a darker shade of charcoal with the wetness. It has Trixie nodding rapidly, pressing Katya’s fingers harder against her with her own.

Katya takes the hint without much trouble at all, pulls her panties to the side in lieu of going through the hassle of taking them off. She doesn’t have time to do so, not when Trixie’s eyes are slipping closed, teeth obstructing the moans that Katya just knows are battling to escape her voice box.

She doesn’t let them, instead bites down harder, only releases them to speak when she feels Katya’s movements halt. Trixie wants Katya’s fingers on her, inside her, like she’s needed for hours, to coax her towards an orgasm or three that will leave Trixie shaking, searching for breath that she won’t be able to find.

“Please, Katya-“. She croaks, presses her thumb into the pulse point on the left side of Katya’s neck.

“- _Fuck_ me”. The words leave her in the form of a pitiful whine. Trixie doesn’t care, because she’s not opposed to begging, not with knowing that she’ll probably never encounter Katya again after she stumbles home briskly the next morning, still on bare feet because her sandals will cause too many excruciatingly painful blisters -

Or maybe Katya will be courteous and drive her, in her green pickup that had kept Trixie warm and toasty on the ride back, with the seats that had soothed Trixie’s aching body. She hopes so, flags down the possibility of a departing kiss from Katya herself, as she’s hanging out of the window just to wave Trixie off, bid her a good day.

It’s undetermined if she’ll do such a thing or not, because Trixie’s gone into this mostly blind, without her thick rimmed glasses, hadn’t even had the time to decipher wether Katya’s the type of person to do that, take care of her one night stands, but she guesses that it’s fine either way, if Katya fucks her well.

The idea makes her thoughts run ragged.

Trixie’s body freezes, stops in a shutter speed motion as Katya’s fingertips make first direct contact with her clit. It’s swollen, pulsing beneath Katya’s delicate touches, as are her lips, parting to reveal her hole that’s busy clenching around nothing and searching for something, anything to satisfy the persistent need.

“Nobody’s home, be as loud as you like, _alright_?”. Offers Katya, merely because she knows that Trixie will do so once given the go ahead. She’ll whimper and pant freely, allow her guttural moans to reverberate around the room, off of the cross that Katya’s parents have nailed to the mantle in the centre of said room.

Katya’s not disappointed, is far from it when she glides two fingers through Trixie’s sopping wetness, slides them inside of her with little resistance. Trixie’s eyes roll back into her skull, as her knees threaten to give way instantly atop of Katya.

They won’t, because Katya’s got her, is holding her waist securely with her free hand, fingers splayed protectively across the small of her back that’s prickled with droplets of sweat. Trixie’s lips part, and it’s filthily angelic, the way they’re torn up from her own teeth gnawing away at them.

She moans openly when Katya’s palm presses firmly against her clit, searches for the right angle and the most friction she can get amongst the wetness that’s continuing to spread; up Katya’s wrist and down Trixie’s thighs.

The rivers follow the patterns of the faint, branch like stretch marks on the inner parts of them, pool into miniature lakes where her ass sits on Katya’s lap. They both know that Katya’s denim pants will need a wash from the stains that will appear, but it’s the least of Katya’s worries when she’s got this girl - Trixie - blonde and horny and there, for her, with her head thrown back and her spine arched in pleasure.

Katya adds another finger.

Curling them relentlessly, Katya focuses on the feeling of Trixie on top of her, around her, muscles clenching the life out of her fingers that are drawing Trixie closer to an orgasm that will make her toes grip at the fabric of the couch, cause her thighs to collapse fully on top of Katya’s.

“More”. Trixie demands, her voice high and breathy. She’s not going to last much longer, she knows that, thinks it’s a miracle that she’s lasted as long as she has with all of the teasing and the build up since they’d been at the beach, surrounded by nameless faces.

Gritting her teeth, Katya pumps her fingers harder, draws a high pitched scream from Trixie. It’s a sound that she didn’t think was possible to extract from her, even if Katya were to push her onto her back on the couch, eat her out for the next hour. But it was, more than possible, and Trixie’s left whining one long continuous echo of arousal when Katya yanks her head back down to look at her by her light blonde strands.

Trixie’s eyes are blown, watering like her core, and Trixie feels drunk. She hasn’t had a single sip of alcohol the whole night, hasn’t even inhaled a puff or two from the joint that she knows Kim had brought with her, but she feels _drunk_. On Katya and her touches, her words that spark electricity through her body and beyond.

“You want more? I’ve already got three fingers in, baby-”. Reasons Katya, spurs on Trixie’s movements. She’s begun thrusting herself down onto Katya’s fingers, taking in whatever the other girl will give her without Trixie having to force her, guide her hand herself.

Katya sniggers smugly.

She knows Trixie’s close, couldn’t not be from the way her hips have started stuttering and chasing the somewhat rough touches aimlessly. Her moans have ceased noticeably, only heavy pants and incoherent squeaks being able to be formed in the quarters of her mind that are screaming Katya Katya Katya.

“-Come on”. Katya adds, and Trixie does. She comes with a slam of her hips onto Katya’s hand, a grunt that wracks Katya’s rib cage and her core, a whine that’s shrill to both of their ears when Katya nips gently at the nipple that’s closest to her mouth.

She’s shaking, and Katya’s pulling her fingers out of Trixie, sliding them into her mouth where she’s drinking Trixie down in hearty gulps, swearing to herself that next time she’ll taste her, make Trixie come with Katya’s name on her lips and her hands in her hair, tugging at her roots -

Guiding her to where she _needs_ her to be.


	2. 1992

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trixie laughs immediately, but there’s a dagger in her heart that’s twisting and turning, a rope around her neck that’s tightening with every breath and swallow that makes her heart clench, then fragment into microscopic grains of sand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 2!! i just want to say firstly thank you guys so so much for all of the love for the first chapter of this!! i didn’t expect people to like it so much, but am so glad that you did! 
> 
> secondly, this chapter is ridiculously long (so long that i considered cutting the first scene out entirely, but felt it just didn’t work without it) but with that said i’m kind of really proud of it? 
> 
> thirdly,, this part picks up on the New Year’s Eve after chapter 1, just in case that wasn’t clear enough throughout. 
> 
> and finally, i hope you enjoy!! ♡

The sound of the new portable wall phone in Trixie’s house is shrill.

It vibrates off of the plain white and aged beige walls, echoes around the semi high ceilings that are adorned with dark, wooden beams, and pierces Trixie’s eardrums; a sewing needle digging through the thinnest sheet of cotton that gives way with a singular tap.

She thinks about it sometimes when she’s laying in bed, wrapped in her lemon coloured crocheted blankets and lilac scatter cushions, can hear the repetitive, eerie tone haunting her. It’s a ghost of a beep, an illusive nod to the dial up phone she remembers that once sat in the same place throughout her childhood.

Sometimes she’s able to block out the harsh noise, when she’s on the cusp between being asleep and snapping awake. She can allow herself to tune out her hearing, in order to barely register the drilling when it stops, because either her mom or dad had picked it up, barked an abrasive greeting down the phone line on the rare occasion that they’re home.

It’s invasive and unwelcome, so much so that Trixie almost misses the days when phones were a rarity. They’re becoming more popular as the years go by, much like modern televisions and computers - _god_ those computers, Trixie almost despises them, the cuboid contraptions with screens and a keyboard that clicks and shifts.

Trixie likes typewriters and pens, not cassettes and phones, but right now she can hear it - the house phone - ringing in the living room from where she’s sat in the kitchen.

The hard wood of the bar stool digs into her thighs, causes faint indentations to appear in her pale skin that’s left exposed from the short length of her nightgown. It burns slightly, as does the frigid cold of the slate floor that’s freezing her toes, turning them a shade of speckled blue, but Trixie doesn’t want to move.

She’s comfortable where she is, with the marble counter top splayed beneath her fingers, the crumbs left over from the toast that she’d made herself for a late lunch sticking to her clammy palms. They brush off with ease, onto her thighs that jiggle as she stands begrudgingly.

Because she knows that she has to answer, really. Her mom and her dad aren’t home, much like usual, are over at their neighbours house drinking rosé and burgundy wine whilst they indulge in the commercialised normality of the New Years festivities.

It’s absurd, that the person calling hasn’t disconnected already when Trixie’s allowed it to ring mercilessly for at least thirty seconds already. She thinks it’s probably one of her fathers business associates, hoping to finalise a deal of some sorts that Trixie couldn’t care less about even if she tried her hardest, and thinks it’s a shame because she’s only going to have to tell whoever it is that he’s not home, won’t be home for hours, most likely.

She pads into the living room with a displeased huff, keeps her thin robe wrapped tightly around her being with one arm as she reaches to lift the portable phone off of its hook with the other. The flooring in this room is softer under her feet than in the kitchen, plush and carpeted, though still with a little grip that tickles the balls of her feet.

The hard plastic pressing against her ear makes Trixie shiver slightly, the antenna of the phone hidden in her dropping curls that fall just past her shoulders. She slumps against the wall momentarily, crosses her legs at the ankles in order to allow the bones of her shoulders to mould to the brickwork as she spits her greeting.

“Hello?”.

“ _Trixie_!”.

The phone line crackles unmistakably with static, but Trixie recognises the voice instantaneously. It’s noticeably more husky through wires, through empty space and speakers that Trixie finds herself wishing didn’t exist. The voice continues, mumbles an are you there that Trixie unintentionally ignores in lieu of shuffling over to the couch on the other side of the room, throwing herself down onto it.

On the other end of the phone line, Trixie can hear inhales and exhales, drags of a cigarette that she guesses is almost burnt out and down to the filter that’s browning with the smoke. She hears a faint cough, followed by an even lower Trixie -

It’s _Katya_.

Trixie thinks she’s spoken to her on the phone merely a handful of times since they’d first met, surrounded by irrelevant acquaintances and with minds as empty as the beer cans that had littered the sandy ground. It had been Halloween, and Trixie had been stone cold sober in comparison to her friend Kim, who according to Shea from the arcade, had ended the night with her leather jacket in the sea and her shoes covered in sticky liquor.

It’s laughable, but it’s a night that Trixie likes to forget about sometimes, prefers to pretend never happened in order to protect herself from the humiliating flashbacks of hopping out of Katya’s pick up truck the next morning, creeping up the old wooden staircase of her own house at an ungodly hour in order to avoid waking her parents.

She thinks she’d succeeded, but is also entirely aware that neither her mom or her dad are about to question her when they see her trekking back in the same outfit that she’d left in, dungarees crumpled and heeled sandals tucked under her arm.

They don’t want to know about any of it, much like they didn’t bat an eyelid when Katya had first called Trixie that same night. It was the first of a few, not many, where Trixie had answered confusedly, only to find out through Katya’s hushed whispers and broken syllables that Kim had given Katya the phone number to Trixie’s house.

Trixie had curled herself up on the armchair in the corner of the room, tucked her legs under her body and wrapped a fleecy blanket that had been thrown over the armrest around her shoulders. Katya spoke gently to the younger girl, coaxed her to a rapid orgasm with her breathy words and intoxicating slurs, made Trixie rub herself through her frilly panties with one hand, bite the thumb of the other as she kept the phone balanced between her cheek and her shoulder blade.

It was hot, more so than Trixie would like to admit. It left her itching for whatever else she could get when Katya ended the phone call, told Trixie to sleep well as she lit up her cigarette, began drinking it down like she wanted to do to Trixie. She stood on shaky legs, put the phone back on the hook in the kitchen and stumbled to the bathroom, where she froze her skin with an arctic shower, wished and prayed for Katya to call again; _soon_.

Only she _didn’t_.

The next call came weeks later, consisted simply of Katya inviting Trixie to a small house party where she was assured there’d be a spare bedroom, empty and desolate, secluded and private enough for Katya to fuck her into the mattress, claw the skin of her back.

Trixie had accepted the invitation with glee and lust running through her veins, for the phone calls to become more infrequent from then on. They’d only spoken if Katya had called Trixie when she somehow knew Trixie’s parents wouldn’t be home, or if Trixie had called Katya if she was feeling exponentially and unexplainably brave, told Katya to rescue her from the shackles of her house with her old pick up truck that screeched every time Katya shifted gears.

The thought makes Trixie clench her thighs together unwittingly, because Katya’s fucked Trixie like she wanted to many times in the back seats of aforementioned truck, on the leather seats that she’d warmed up with the heaters before she had picked Trixie up, driven up to the empty parking lot on the cliff tops.

Trixie had come hard every time, every time, had crouched to the floor between the seats afterwards and ate Katya out hungrily, zealously, with Katya’s nails scratching at the glass of the windows.

It’s _hot_ , Trixie reiterates to herself. She knows that, is all too aware that it could never be anything but hot with Katya’s toned arms and bony fingers, her bold eyebrows and quick wit -

But she also knows that it’s _nothing_.

She likes Katya, and likes letting Katya make her come. She likes to make Katya do so, too, yet she doesn’t know her at all. Trixie hypothesises that she probably knows Katya as well as the old lady in the coffee shop on Marley Lane, the one who wears navy skirts and wire rimmed glasses as if it’s her unspoken uniform for life.

They sell the best chocolate chip cookies there, according to Katya, who’s told Trixie that she frequents the place, likes to sit with her sketchbook in the corner booth and outline the figure of each mundane individual that sets foot into the establishment.

It makes Trixie’s mind gloss over the things she’d like to know about Katya. How many sugars does she take in her coffee when she orders it, if any at all. What’s her favourite spot on the beach and why, how long would she spend there if she had to choose; eternity or a minute.

She wants to know the things that she should already know, also, like Katya’s favourite colour and preferred time of day, her food of choice and her dream vacation destination. Trixie thinks that the answers to the above are green, nightfall, popcorn and Italy - in that order - though she’s not certain, and doubts that she ever will be.

Shaking herself, she acknowledges that it’s stupid even if it works, because Trixie’s got her life planned out, for the most part, and she’s not sure it includes Katya - spine tingling, chest fluttering _Katya_ \- for much longer.

Katya’s reckless, clueless most of the time. She rarely looks before crossing the busy street in town and doesn’t bother waiting for the traffic lights to turn green at intersections when Trixie’s not in the car with her. She balances her entire existence on an oscillating seesaw, waits for one side to tip over and crash to the ground completely under the weight of decisions and circumstances.

Trixie wishes she wouldn’t, but she does, and Trixie doesn’t think she’d ever be capable of changing that. Katya’s habits are ingrained in her being, engraved in her skin and the bones of her spine in tiny, illegible calligraphy. They’re interwoven in her strands of hair, painted on the surface of her lips so that Trixie can taste them every time she kisses her; breathes her in.

The phone is still pressed to her ear as she buries her head into the backrest of the couch, allows her cheek to be swallowed up by creamy suede that’s slightly irritable to her nose. She scrunches it up, turns her head away after numerous seconds of attempting to find a comfortable position.

She gives up.

“Katya?”. Her response comes out hoarse, having not uttered a single word out loud for the duration of the day that she’s been awake for thus far. She clears her throat, sits up a little straighter on the spongy couch in order to allow air to better enter her lungs.

Katya chuckles lowly down the line, and Trixie already knows that she’s biting at the inside of her cheek in order to not laugh more raucously, disturb her mom and dad that are probably sitting comfortably in the next room over. It’s a living situation that Trixie’s entirely unfamiliar with, but Katya’s well acquainted with it by now, and manoeuvres around her family with a practiced ease.

“Yeah! _So_ -“. Begins Katya, barrelling ahead with the purpose of her call before Trixie’s able to stretch out her legs across the seats of the couch, dig her toes under a pile of cushions that lay on the opposite side to her in order to keep them warm, toasty.

“-I spoke to Kim earlier”. Katya deadpans, awaits Trixie’s response that the lighter blonde has yet to orchestrate in her mind. She doesn’t know what Katya’s expecting her to say, or if she’s expecting her to say anything at all, really, will simply continue with her spiel after numerous seconds of silence from Trixie’s end.

“Ok?”. Trixie queries, her voice climbing an octave. She’s still in the dark, unaware of what Katya’s going to ask, or of what she’s going to tell her. It could be anything, Trixie knows, absolutely anything, because this is Katya.

She could be calling to tell Trixie about Kim’s new found fascination with Japanese cartoons that they now show on some dead end television channel on a Sunday, or about a new slot machine that’s been delivered to the arcade; all neon flashing lights and buttons that stick and click frustratingly.

Either way, Trixie guesses, she’s going to hear about it from Katya, who’s breathing into her ear as she inhales the last dregs of her cigarette. Trixie can almost hear the ash tray that she’s probably used sliding across the surface of her dark, oak coffee table, adding another scratch mark to the ones that have already been created.

She listens to Katya hum faintly for a second or two, maybe three, before the elders lowering her tone, making sure she enunciates each word for Trixie to be able to hear her clearly through the poor connection of the landline.

“She told me that your family are goin’ to the beach tonight, but you’re not”. Establishes Katya, tapping her short nails on the body of the phone. Trixie can hear it audibly from her end, and wants to tell Katya to stop doing so before she’s even begun, but she can’t, isn’t able to bring herself to do so as she’s reminded of the beach.

The beach. New Years. _Celebrations_.

Trixie had made a conscious decision to erase the event from her mind, couldn’t fathom having to attend the community organised affaire with her mom and dad and Kim, too. She holds no interest in such things, in the hierarchy of parents and children that seems to exist amongst Trixie’s parents and their slightly richer friends.

It’s insanity, how repetitive it gets every year. The same explosive fireworks and overpriced popcorn machines, freshly spun candy floss that leaves her with sticky fingers and an empty stomach. She’s not opposed to giving this one year a miss, ‘ _91_ transitioning to ‘ _92_ , not when ‘ _90_ to ‘ _91_ had been less that exciting and eventful, with the town mayor droning on about old fashioned values in her speech summarising their achievements of the year.

Trixie’s more than content with staying in her house, without her parents and without the sound of the phone ringing occasionally, blasting through her ear drums. She wishes to curl up in bed, press play on a VHS that she’s half way through on her tiny, minuscule television in her bedroom, watch it until the closing credits with her cinnamon scented candle burning relaxingly.

That’s what entices her, not being outdoors, on the old rickety pier that she believes should have collapsed decades ago, into the torrid waves below. She doesn’t want to be cold, with watery eyes and a red tipped nose, but Katya’s voice sounds hopeful.

Trixie’s reluctant to let her down.

“S’not really my thing”. Trixie settles eventually, twists a loose thread on her robe between her thumb and forefinger, pulls at it until she’s able to watch it fray, come away from the seams. It’s strangely symbolic, representative of how Katya’s seemingly unravelling her dispositions as she continues to speak, question Trixie on her viewpoint.

“It’s not?”. Tries Katya, cocking her head to the side. Trixie’s able to visualise her doing so even without seeing Katya’s movements, can somehow pick up on the mannerisms that accompany Katya’s tone and words, along with her tempting body language.

Trixie begins shaking her head to herself, forces her mind to recognise that Katya’s not in the room with her, despite the vivid visuals and imagery that Trixie can practically see sprawled out across the bland, snow walls of her living room. She sighs raggedly, crosses one leg over the other, feels the chill of her bare knee cap thaw under her humid skin.

“Spending more time than necessary with my mom and dad after the whole hassle of Christmas? No thank you”. Trixie scoffs, can hear Katya let out an equally as ragged and deflated sigh from where she’s perched both figuratively and literally on the edge of her seat, nails digging into the plush material of the couch.

“Trixie”. Katya whines, draws out Trixie’s name ruefully until Trixie cuts her off bitterly, albeit halfheartedly. Katya’s downtrodden, and Trixie’s aware of that, can tell from the slight crack in her voice that’s appeared, one that wasn’t present before.

It’s not intentional, Katya knows that as well as Trixie does, but the seeming rejection still hurts a little. It bites at her tongue and draws blood, singes it with the coffee that’s still a fraction too piping hot to be drank, guzzled down with greedy lips.

Shrugging, Trixie rubs at her forehead with her free hand. She can almost feel the premature wrinkles forming by the second, from the scrutiny that comes with the lack of Katya’s physical presence in the room. She wishes that the other girl was there, to peck at them, smooth them out with calloused fingertips and gentle touches, but she’s not, and Trixie has to accept that with a pinch to her side.

“Katya, I said it’s not my thing”. Trixie attempts to reason. She thinks she’s triumphant when there’s a pause, and the phone line crackles akin to a rustling paper bag, or one of those new plastic ones that Trixie already knows aren’t going to help the environment in any feasible way.

She can hear Katya’s thoughts moving, her brain waves permeating into atoms and electrons that find their ways into Trixie’s ears, burning the shells of them inconsiderately.

“Could I _make_ it your thing?”. Katya sounds tentative, and it stops Trixie from hitting the red button that’s been put in place on the phone in order to end the call. She’d been ready to do just that seconds prior, was willing to tear down Katya’s ego just a little more, allow her self centric attitude to rotate elsewhere.

Snickering, Trixie runs her fingers through the strands of hair that are framing her face. They’re aggravating, and she hopes that there’s a hair tie laying around somewhere, so that she can throw half of her hair up into a makeshift pony tail atop her head, feel it pulling at her roots.

She wants the pain, the vexatious tingle that comes with it momentarily, even if it’s simply to distract from _Katya Katya Katya_ -

Katya, who’s whirling around her mind at full speed, ripping chunks out of her nerves and patience that keep her grounded most of the time, until she’s left dazed, confused, because she doesn’t know.

It could be made her thing easily, by the godforsaken Katya, with merely her presence, Trixie guesses. Both know it, even if Katya sounds more uncertain now than Trixie thinks she’s ever heard her sound when asking Trixie to _come over to hers_ , or to _be ready in fifteen_ because she’d be waiting outside, in Trixie’s driveway behind the wheel of that hideous pickup truck that Trixie’s grown a soft spot for.

With the addition of Katya, the entire idea of New Years doesn’t terrify her quite as much as it did minutes prior, with fireworks and popcorn and the unstable pier. That doesn’t scare her in the slightest, but the notion and connotations behind it do.

Trixie would be going for Katya.

“Look, I don’t know, maybe”.

 _Maybe_.

Trixie’s hands are trembling, so much so that the plastic of the phone scrapes against the earrings adorning her earlobes. The sound makes her recoil, until she’s standing briskly, whipping her head around to cast a fleeting gaze out the large bay window.

The sun is already setting, casting a dreariness over the suburb that makes Trixie feel less lonely than she did in the blinding light of the morning winter sun, that highlighted her flaws and emphasised her emotional disfigurement.

She finds herself wanting to scream at her neighbours across the street that are packing up suitcases into the trunk of their car for their annual get away, wants to tell them about the churning in her stomach and the unease in her chest.

Clearing her throat, Trixie trudges back over to where the phone hook lays, stares at it longingly whilst Katya hums affirmatively. She’s twisting with excitement, undisclosed success when she’s certain that Trixie will show up, locate Katya in a crowd of over familiar distant family members and surface level friends.

“Great! I’ll be there quite early, I’m sure you’ll be able to find me”.

“Katya-“.

Katya ends the call.

Trixie groans audibly into the empty room, allows her head to fall back against the wall next to the dock for the phone, said phone still gripped tightly in the grasp of her right hand. It’s almost thrown across the room, slammed into the porcelain ornament of a fairy that Trixie’s mom is especially fond of, until her mind ticks with realisation.

She stands up straight, wills her forgotten common sense and intuition to flood back into her mind, puts the phone back on the hook, too.

 _Click_.

Trixie already has an outfit in mind.

*****

When Trixie gets to the pier that night she notices immediately that popcorn is the most prominent smell.

It’s overwhelming, pungent and burnt, to the extent that it makes Trixie scrunch up her nose, attempt to bury it in the fabric of her knitted scarf in order to escape the fumes that refuse to die down, even around the candy floss and mince pie stalls.

Trixie wants nothing more than to drown herself in perfume or candle wax, to clog up her pores and her nostrils, and finds that she still feels the same way over an hour into the event; drunk on cheap beers and boxed wine that she’s managed to sneak from a group of older men.

They gladly gave it to her, eyed her father over her shoulder, unwilling to annoy the daughter of the man that they all most likely worked for. The slight power made Trixie giggle as she downed the alcohol, swallowed it eagerly whilst pacing the boardwalk and then the pier that bounced beneath her feet.

Being here, watching fireworks, is the last thing that Trixie wants to do to celebrate New Years if she thinks about it long enough, through her slightly foggy mind.

The entire atmosphere seems obscure and surreal, with the sky dripping pinks and oranges and _golds_ , her mom and dad somewhere, acting more like distant relatives that she sees at thanks giving once a year than the parents that they’re meant to be.

Trixie doesn’t care, either way. She’s got the entire town kissing up to her, almost, people she’s never seen before offering her their space in the crowd by the barrier just so she can see the splatters of colourful fire better, fluttering across the waves of the sea. She declines politely every time, leaves them cowering in the distance as she continues walking the perimeters of the area, glass beer bottle clutched in her hand that just about matches the temperature of the algid material.

Fog escapes her mouth with every exhale, evaporates with ease into the thick air surrounding her as she reaches the end of the pier. It’s quieter down this end, less people congregating in specific spots in order to breeze over mindless conversations that are irrelevant, Trixie decides.

It’s darker, too, with fewer lampposts illuminating the faces of those that have been brave enough to walk down this far, over to the one candy floss machine that appears to be broken, whirring and screeching. She acknowledges that she likes it better here already, where she’s able to drop her falsified smile that makes her cheeks ache terribly, and her eyes water occasionally.

She knows that it’s even better than that when she spots Katya, who she’s been looking for for longer than she cares to admit, rounding the corner and walking up to Trixie steadily, a bucket of popcorn clutched under her arm. Her face looks as battered by the cold as Trixie’s must, her nose red and tender, but she’s looking at Trixie knowingly, teasingly.

“Katya!”. Trixie greets, her mood lifting with the beer that she’s still gulping and the popcorn that Katya’s offering to her, arms outstretching the bucket until Trixie’s able to pick up the pieces that she wants with frost bitten fingertips.

Katya’s leaning on the railing of the pier with her elbows, resting her chin on her intertwined hands. Her eyes scan over Trixie’s being, who’s still ignoring the fireworks that are popping, banging, exploding, in lieu of sifting her way through the bucket of popcorn.

She only picks up the pieces that are the most saturated in butter, Katya notices, brushes past the ones that are stuck to the edges of the bucket because they’re probably too dry, not sweet enough to leave grease on her hands and her lips. It makes Katya giggle lowly, as much as it makes her want to lean up, press a warm kiss to Trixie’s cold yet buttery lips that smack together as she finishes chewing.

“You came”. She settles for instead, buries her own hand in the bucket of popcorn that she still thinks was ridiculously overpriced, lifts the hand grappling onto the pieces to her mouth, crunches them as quietly as she can.

Trixie nods her head slowly, rests her now empty beer bottle precariously on the barrier, where Katya can see her buttery fingerprints littering the neck of it in the low light. She blushes, then, turns her head the other way, away from Katya and her scrutiny; her inception.

“I did”. Trixie hums, keeps her voice steady through the tipsy side of her mind. She’s not as drunk as she initially thought she was, more so somewhere between two vodka shots deep and four glasses of wine, a middle ground where Trixie feels comfortable.

The floor isn’t spinning and the sky isn’t melting, but her head is buzzing, skin tingling and heart beating a little faster than it normally would. Katya’s presence isn’t helping the matter, either, with the scent of her musky perfume getting trapped in Trixie’s tastebuds, and the fabric of her coat brushing sporadically up against Trixie’s glacial knuckles.

It has Trixie nibbling at the inside of her cheeks, as does the fact that Katya hasn’t said anything else to her aside from a faint mumble to make Trixie aware that she’d heard her response, had digested it in her gut.

Unlike Trixie she seems to be enjoying the display of fireworks and sparklers, or at least isn’t finding them boring to the extent that she’s contemplating jumping off of the pier, or running back home like Trixie had at one point. Her eyes dazzle with the glimmers of light, irises erupting with more greens and blues and turquoise’s that only end up emphasising the colour already there; which Trixie can still see even in the near pitch black.

Trixie wishes that she could find the same enthusiasm, be it contrived or not, force herself to find solace in the passing of time and the joining of family and friends -

But she _can’t_.

The thrill of New Years, the holidays in general, had worn off numerous years ago for Trixie. It’s all mundane and dreary, uneventful and repetitive corporate schemes ignited simply to make a quick buck from the people still indulging in the manifestation of happiness and togetherness.

It’s why Trixie merely sighs when everybody around her starts counting down from ten to one, including Katya. They bellow happy new year out into the open, cast it over seas with the vibrations of their voices and the puffs of violet and childish red that blast into the air of ‘ _92_.

‘ _92_.

It’s ‘ _92_ and Trixie can’t find it in herself to care, not even as Katya continues to eye the colours for a while, until she looks as bored as Trixie does with her mouth full of popcorn, her hands buttery, too. She turns her body towards Trixie’s, drops her elbows from the barrier and instead crosses her arms over her chest.

Tilting her head to the side, Katya clears her throat, draws Trixie’s attention away from the bucket of popcorn that’s now sitting on the decked floor. Trixie arches an eyebrow, pops out a hip that Katya’s gaze drops to momentarily, until it wavers back up to Trixie’s eyes that are still watering with each hard, relentless gust of wind that blows over.

“What are your goals for the year?”. Katya blurts, leaves Trixie blinking blankly towards her. Katya fiddles with the cuff of her jacket nervously, toys with unfolding it and refolding it whilst Trixie’s mouth gapes.

Trixie shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly, and suddenly she’s somehow interested in the fireworks that are still going off; haven’t stopped since she had arrived earlier in the evening. There’s only been a couple of intervals that Trixie can count on the fingers of one hand, where they’ve stopped the squealing zingers and the wheels that roll off into the atmosphere, but with Katya’s eyes burning a hole into the side of her head she doesn’t want them to stop, now.

“To graduate, I _guess_ ”. Answers Trixie. Her tone is empty and void of any emotion that Katya can pin point without being able to see the majority of her face. She knows that she’d be able to tell, if she could see Trixie’s eyes, or at least her eyebrows to see how they raise and furrow, scrunch and turn down.

Only she can’t, so she settles for staring down at Trixie’s feet, that can’t seem to keep still. She keeps switching from one foot to the other, crossing and uncrossing her legs. Her hands are fidgeting too, nails tapping an undisclosed rhythm across the surface of the barrier that’s all wood and metal, painted a glossy white.

Katya wheezes out a giggle and lifts a hand to cup Trixie’s elbow. She does so easily, digs her nails into the soft cotton of Trixie’s coat, feels it slipping through her fingers akin to the grains of sand that lay on the pier from where they’ve been blow over by gales and breeze.

“Do homeschoolers even graduate?”. Katya wonders aloud, shakes her head to herself as Trixie turns back around to face her. Her eyes travel down to where Katya’s hand is still holding her elbow securely yet delicately, and pushes it reflexively further into Katya’s grasp.

Giggling, Trixie rolls her eyes. Katya observes her as she does so, loosens her hold on Trixie’s elbow before eventually dropping her hand completely. She places it at her side instead, leans the other back on the railing where she’s able to rest her head against it.

“Shut _up_ ”. Trixie groans, swats a hand out towards Katya haphazardly. She finds herself tugging at the tassels on the ends of Katya’s scarf, loops them between her fingers so that she’s able to pull on them, draw Katya’s being closer to hers.

Katya steps forward without much more coercion, and then her hand is back on Trixie’s elbow, holding Trixie’s front to her own. Pressed against the lighter blonde, she’s warmer, Trixie’s sweet breath hitting her cheek, the corner of her mouth and her chin.

Her spine is still prickled with goosebumps, as are her arms and legs under her clothing, but her chest is warm, fluttering with waves of Trixie and butter and the beer she can smell vaguely emanating from Trixie’s skin.

“I’m serious-“. Katya reiterates, nods encouragingly towards Trixie, who’s sniffing with the cold. Katya knows that the stinging wintry weather is getting to Trixie, soft and delicate, and she’s half tempted to take Trixie back to her truck right there and then, just so she can wrap her up in the blanket that she keeps in the back seats, blast up the heating to turn her lips from blue to plush pink.

“-What are your goals?”. She finishes. Katya thinks that she might do so anyway, whisk Trixie away and back to her truck, if it means that they both get to escape the cold and the people that have begun clustering around them.

Katya doesn’t care for striking up conversation with any of them, not when she’s got Trixie hanging onto her scarf, breathing down her neck with warmth and kindness. She knows that the other girl’s only here because she asked her to be, and admires Trixie’s ways, how she wouldn’t have left Katya to trudge through the dismal night alone, even if it means that she’s hawkish, burning from the cold.

Shrugging her shoulders slowly, Trixie slouches her back noticeably. She does so in order to be closer to Katya’s height, even though there’s not much difference to begin with. The action means that she’s left standing eye level with Katya, whose eyes are crossing with the close proximity.

“I ‘wanna train to become a teacher after summers over-“. Trixie starts, runs her tongue over her top lip that’s drying, cracking slightly with the minus temperatures.

“-I’d love to teach kindergarten”. She confesses, ends her sentence with a nod of her head that makes Katya’s eyes bug, bulge so that Trixie’s able to see her pupils enlarge, and then shrink again back to their original size.

“You like kids?”. A smile tugs at the corner of Katya’s mouth, her lips threatening to upturn against her will. She runs her eyes over the expanse of Trixie’s face, that’s slightly shiny and yet simultaneously red and noticeably dry, much like her lips.

Katya finds it endearing, how her freckles have faded since late summer, or early autumn, and now remain in light dustings, constellations across the bridge of her nose and the faint bags under her eyes. She can see the laugh lines forming around Trixie’s eyes, as she’s sure that Trixie can see the ones around hers that are already prominent, ingrained in her skin.

Both are giggling lowly, but Trixie’s nodding her head, puffing a strand of hair away from her face with her buttery beer breath that has Katya intoxicated, drunk on only Trixie and her words, her movements and her touches. She’s gripping at Katya’s scarf still, and Katya can feel the pressure of her hand through her layers of sweaters and her coat that’s padded, yet doing little to keep her warm.

“I like other people’s kids, I don’t think I’d want my own. What about you?.”

“Huh?”.

“What are _your_ goals?”. Trixie repeats, feels Katya’s hand travel from her elbow to her hip, and then around her waist where it stays. Katya’s fingers work beneath the hem of her shirt, her sweater and her coat, until they reach the small of her back.

A small, barely audible screech leaves Trixie’s lips, thanks to the cold of Katya’s hand, her fingertips that splay out. They heat up quickly, though, snug between Trixie’s velvety shirt and her equally as supple skin that makes it hard for Katya to tell where clothing ends and Trixie begins.

Katya guesses she doesn’t care, because she’s already got her answer prepared. It’s bouncing up and down on the tip of her tongue, wanting to jump out before she gives it the go-ahead, because she’s certain of what she’s about to say for once.

She’s _confident_.

“I want to travel”.

Part of her feels like her answer is predictable; overly generic and so Katya that it’s almost laughable, but the other half is proud. She’s pleased that she’s been able to answer such a question for once, without the nagging feeling of doubt circulating in her stomach about whether or not she’s doing the right thing, making the right decisions.

Trixie nods once, purses her lips. It’s a silent affirmation that lets Katya know that she’s ok to continue, to elaborate further. She does so, taps her fingertips across the small of Trixie’s back in a _one, two, three_ motion.

“I’ve got family all over Europe. I’m thinking of just, I don’t know, seeing where this _crazy_ world takes me”. Katya rambles, shrugs indefinitely when Trixie frowns back at her with her teeth digging into her bottom lip. She releases it slowly, a white indent having formed where one tooth dug especially deep.

She eyes Katya suspiciously, unthreads her fingers from the elders scarf so that she’s able to tug her closer by the collar of her coat, feel it crumple beneath her touch. Katya allows her to do it, because Trixie looks shocked, bewildered almost, and Katya’s not entirely sure why.

“You don’t have a plan?”. Stutters Trixie. It makes Katya laugh heartily, shake her head with a nonchalance that Trixie envies and wishes that she could take on for herself.

She cares about things of little significance, in comparison to Katya, who appears to look at the world as if it’s meaningless; the only things relevant and important to her being the present and everything in it, surrounding it.

“You don’t _need_ a plan, Trixie”. Soothes Katya, lowering her voice so that the couple of old women that are now standing less than two feet away from them remain oblivious to their conversation, and how their limbs are all but superglued to one and others. The position is admittedly awkward, but Katya can’t bring herself to pull away from Trixie, who’s holding on tighter to her than she was moments ago, her fingers almost trembling.

“I feel like I always need a plan”. Trixie saddens, gaze flickering down towards her shoes, a pair of suede lace up boots that have been dampened with the ice that’s melted upon them.

Katya squeezes her side reassuringly, but Trixie doesn’t look up, forces Katya to stare directly into her eyelashes instead. They’re blonde at the roots and near black at the ends, from where they’ve been stained with the mascara that Trixie coats them in religiously, every day. They brush against her under eyes, blow gently in the breeze until Katya moves her head even closer towards Trixie’s, succeeds in blocking the wind from hitting their faces.

“What are your plans for the rest of the night?”. Katya tries, succeeds in getting Trixie’s eyes to meet hers once again. Her eyes look slightly glassy as she stares blankly yet hopefully at Katya.

 _Trixie doesn’t know_.

It’s a reoccurring theme, she decides then; not knowing what she’s doing. Trixie’s spent a lot of time in a constant state of confusion and bewilderment since Katya had entered her life, bounded in less than gracefully with her skittish movements and her clever words, her caring demeanour and even more skilful fingers. It has Trixie clenching her thighs in her thick, woollen tights.

“I-“. Stammers Trixie, cocking her head to one side.

“-I don’t know”. She drops her hands from Katya’s front, weaves them around her back in order to pull her closer still. Trixie doesn’t think it’s possible, but is proven wrong when Katya follows her lead, steps closer wordlessly into Trixie’s space.

The fronts of their thighs are pressed together. Their chests, too, through layers upon layers of cotton and wool and polyester that’s itching at Katya’s skin. She wants to peal them away, feel Trixie’s skin on hers instead because it would undoubtedly feel better, that she’s certain of. Trixie’s hand grapples for purchase on her back, forgets it momentarily in order to slip her hand under Katya’s clothing like Katya’s done to her, allows herself to press her fingers into the warm, toned muscle of Katya’s spine.

“We could go for a ride, if you like?”.

It’s a proposition that startles Trixie but _doesn’t_ , not really. She’d expected to end the night at Katya’s, or at least in Katya’s pick up truck when she’d called her earlier in the day, voice hopeful and wanting. Katya’s tone held the offer of being fucked and getting to fuck, but to bask in the warmth afterwards, also, to feel Katya’s lips pressing themselves to her forehead, her cheek, her lips.

Trixie had wanted it, and still does, with Katya’s breath that smells like butter and mint bubblegum for once, instead of the usual smoke that Trixie’s become accustomed to. Katya makes her feel good, and Trixie’s not about to begin to deny it now, with Katya’s eyes springing between the trampolines of her orbs and her lips that are parting with need.

Trixie finds herself nodding before she’s even contemplated it fully, is unwinding herself from Katya in order to stand up straight, click her spine so that her body loosens. Katya knows what she’s doing instantly, is picking up the almost empty bucket of popcorn from the floor so that she can find a bin to discard it in on her way back to her truck.

If she can’t locate one, she’ll simply throw it in the truck itself, she decides, will throw it in one of the recycling bins down town the next time she drives through. The bucket is tucked under her arm by the time that she raises up again, stumbling slightly as she does so.

It makes Trixie giggle lowly, huskily, before a frown overtakes her previously gleeful expression.

“Are-“. Trixie begins, but is cut off by katya taking one of her hands in her free one. She laces their fingers together, tugs Trixie away from the barrier of the pier and begins walking in the direction towards the parking lot where her truck sits.

She knows it’s probably over crowded by this point in the night, filled with _Ford Fiesta’s_ and _Vauxhall Astra’s_ that serve the majority of families in the town. Her truck stands out, stupidly, but it’s hers and she loves it dearly, especially if she considers the fact that the back of a smaller car would never accommodate both her and Trixie, along with their movements.

“I haven’t drank anything, don’t worry”. Katya reassures, grins eagerly so that all of her teeth are on show to Trixie and the families that are bundled in corners, celebration still poring from their veins.

Trixie knows that Katya hasn’t; that she doesn’t ever drink much regardless, and focuses on allowing any thoughts to vacate her mind. She nods once, squeezes Katya’s hand in return.

“ _Alright_ ”.

*****

Katya drives silently for twenty minutes, then parks her pickup truck in the empty parking lot on the cliff tops.

It’s even colder up upon them than it was on the pier, with the sea breeze circulating abrasively in the higher altitude, the clouds that are beyond overcast; dark and grey and _miserable_.

They cast shadows across Trixie’s cheekbones from where she’s chosen adamantly to roll down the windows, leave them wide open. It allows the cold to drift in further, prickle both hers and Katya’s skin with goosebumps, despite the warmth emanating from the heaters that Katya’s cranked up to the highest setting by the illuminated dial.

It makes for an amalgamation of temperatures that Katya’s not entirely comfortable with, but it doesn’t matter, she decides abruptly, because Trixie looks more content than she thinks she’s ever seen her. She’s wrapped in her pink bomber jacket, and the blanket that Katya had grabbed from the back seats in order to sling it over both of their shoulders.

Trixie’s grateful for it, but gladly embraces the icy prickles that the wind kisses her cheeks with, so that her nose is back to glowing red. It’s a cherry on top of a cake, or a vivid warning sign that won’t stop flashing, but Katya finds the sight more endearing than she should as she tugs her own beanie hat more securely over her head, ensures her ears are being covered by the knitted muff of fabric.

Tapping her nails across her denim clad thigh, Katya keeps an eye trained on Trixie. She’s staring aimlessly out of the window, out into the ocean that she surely can’t see in the dark, and has been doing so since Katya had switched off the ignition, lobbed her keys into the small compartment next to the gear box.

That had been half an hour ago, and Trixie’s still yet to utter a word, has only bothered to reach across to clutch one of Katya’s hands in her own, stroke her thumb that’s chipped with nail varnish across Katya’s prominent knuckles.

She looks contemplative, Katya observes. She can see the cogs in her brain turning through her skull, can see her grinding her jaw slightly harsher with every minute that passes neglectfully, too.

Katya wants to tell her to stop, to relax as she digs her thumbs into her shoulders, her clavicles and her ribs until they pop under the tension. She wishes to press featherlight kisses to Trixie’s icy nose, her tiny, icy button nose that’s twitching every so often with jolts and tremors -

But she _can’t_.

She’d learnt not to disturb a thinking, somewhat fragile Trixie long enough ago to know that she requires time, by now. She’ll snap out of it with gentle words and mumbles that are borderline illegible, breathe them into Katya’s hair and neck, skim her teeth across her pulse point.

Katya knows that she’ll do so at her own pace, without Katya asking repeatedly if she’s ok like she once had. It’s not what Trixie needs - constant pestering - requires simple reassurance, instead.

It’s offered to her in the form of gentle squeezes of her hand from Katya, who’s almost become used to the inclement weather. She doesn’t mind it as much as she did a couple of hours ago, when her joints were cramping and her bones aching from the summer months that were missing from her body and soul.

She knows that Trixie’s thankful when she casts a smile - one that reaches to just below her eyes - minutes later, after Katya switches on the car radio and manages to tune it in to a local station that’s playing some _70’s_ song that she only vaguely recognises.

It’s possibly _Blondie_ , or some other artist of that nature that Katya doesn’t care for, but it’s wiped from her mind instantaneously when Trixie opens her mouth, licks once over her lips.

She clears her throat also, acknowledges that the wind has all but knocked the _drunk_ out of her, drained her blood of any alcohol that she’d consumed ardently earlier in the evening. She can feel it dripping away slowly, sip by sip, out of the paper cut on her index finger that still hasn’t healed; one that she’d gotten from some god awful festive wrapping paper.

Cursing it out mentally, she allows herself to lean subconsciously closer to Katya. Katya accepts the advances wordlessly, gladly leaves Trixie to clamber over the gear box and into the drivers seat with her.

It’s spacious enough for the both of them to fit comfortably and without any struggle, and Katya’s once again thanking unknown deities for the truck that’s almost blessing her at this point. It allows Trixie to lay both of her legs across Katya’s, rest her head on the elders shoulder that’s still covered by the soft wool of aforementioned blanket.

Looping her arm around Trixie’s shoulders, Katya hums into Trixie’s untamed curls, feels them tickling at her nose. They’re unquestionably irritating, but she won’t brush them away regardless, will let them sit under her cheek as Trixie nuzzles her head closer closer closer.

Trixie holds Katya’s other hand close to her chest, manages to nestle it between both of her breasts so that Katya’s able to feel the rise and fall of her chest with every inhale and exhale, just as well as she can feel the relentless thump of her heartbeat.

It’s calming, and Katya thinks she likes the vibrations better than the ones being produced by the speakers of the car radio. She’d prefer to press her ear to Trixie’s chest, take in the natural rhythm, rather than be forced to listen to the sounds of contrived pop, or country, whatever it is that’s now playing.

As if Trixie’s listening in on her thoughts, she takes it upon her self to stretch over, switch off the radio with a single tap of her finger. Katya sighs appreciatively, giggles lowly at the smug expression that Trixie’s plastered across her face.

Katya allows her her moment of pride, before she’s whispering a low shut up that has Trixie’s eyes widening as she chuckles, pressing her forehead as far as she’s able to into Katya’s shoulder.

They’re both laughing, then, Trixie hiccuping as her words get trapped in the prison cells of her throat. She unchains them briefly, glances up towards Katya who’s already looking at her intently; already listening keenly to the words that have yet to leave Trixie’s being.

“Come visit me some time?”.

“ _What_?”. Katya breathes, tilts Trixie’s chin up further towards her with her thumb and forefinger. Trixie obliges, sits up a little straighter in order to better face Katya. Katya twists her shoulders too, rolls them from where they’ve begun getting stiff against the less than ergonomic seats.

Trixie gives Katya a fleeting look that tells Katya she should already know what Trixie’s talking about, but she doesn’t, not really - come visit me some time - it’s a simple question that she takes to over complicating, until she’s perplexed and confused like Trixie must have been earlier in the night, or morning.

 _Morning_.

“When you leave this town-“. Trixie’s voice reaches a little above a whisper, though doesn’t quite reach the volume of a mumble that Katya’s able to decipher with ease. Instead it leaves her with a minuscule frown upon her face as Trixie licks her lips, prepares a continuation.

“-Come and visit me if you’re ever back in the area”. Trixie phrases her statement like a question even though it’s the furthest thing from it, because Katya knows that Trixie doesn’t want to leave the place - _home_.

She loves it a lot, more than any spot she’s ever visited on vacation or any town that’s been conjured up in movies that she’s seen in the cinema or on television. It’s not a place that she’s willing to let go of easily, and wants it to remain home for the foreseeable future; the beach and the arcade, the cliff tops that are all but crumbling around her.

 _Home_.

Katya finds herself nodding her head at Trixie when she arches a dark blonde eyebrow towards her, and she agrees silently, bumps her nose against Trixie’s. It’s still cold, but is warming slowly under Katya’s touches and the heating of the truck as Trixie makes the decision to wind up the windows, shut out their surroundings.

It makes everything under the roof hush, so that Trixie can hear Katya’s throat bob as she swallows tentatively, and Katya can hear the rustle of Trixie’s clothing when she rearranges her limbs to be straddling Katya’s thighs.

“Hm?”. Trixie prompts, her mouth a hard line before a smirk emerges. It drags Katya back to where she is, with Trixie on her and around her, her hands balancing on her shoulders.

For her, Trixie _is_ this town, she realises.

She’s beachy and welcoming, manages to hold Katya in the palm of her hand when she wraps her around her little finger. Her thighs and hips are soft - pillowy - but her heart is softer, her words even more so; _delicate_.

Trixie’s breathy whispers keep her awake at night, sometimes, when they’re not huddled in the same bed or reclined across Katya’s tattered couch. They echo in the catacombs of her mind, run her soul ragged with every giggle of her name, all of the times that Trixie’s groaned it out loud into the back seats of her truck.

Katya will take everything that the town has to offer if it means Trixie is her forever tour guide to it. She’ll buy one of the cottages down on the seafront, with the money that she’s saved from her grandparents inheritance and from working at the community centre in town on weekends.

She’s thought about it a lot, how she’s spent the past couple of months chasing Trixie with a rope, knitting them together with needles that only hurt Katya more, because she knows that she’s leaving soon and has no choice but to leave Trixie in her seashell adorned sandcastle with her bucket and spade to rebuild herself.

Tangling her fingers in the strands of Trixie’s hair, Katya hums lowly. It vibrates through Trixie’s chest and out of her mouth, that’s leaning down to place a singular kiss to Katya’s cheek. It makes the dimple there deepen, appear more prominent than when her face was stoic and seemingly emotionless.

“I think I’ll always come back-“. Asserts Katya, whilst pulling Trixie’s hips closer to her own.

“-Don’t think I’d be able to stay away for too long”.

“No?”. Trixie queries, acting more coquettish than curious, rubbing her lips together menially. Katya watches them move, mould against each other until Trixie stops, allows them to part instead.

She looks beyond sinful, to Katya, who’s deliberating over whether or not to put an end to the conversation that’s draining both of them, making Trixie yawn exhaustedly and Katya pinch teasingly at Trixie’s earlobes. The skin there is red, heated, though the barely visible earrings remain chilly.

It’s maddening to the senses of Katya’s fingertips, that stroke down from said earlobes, to her neck and then her collarbones that stick out more than they did a month or two ago, Katya knows. It’s a fact that Trixie’s more than aware of also, with how her cheeks appear more sunken in, less chubby and puffy than they had been during the summer.

It’s ok, she guesses, because after winter she’ll gain the weight back, become fully Trixie again once the harshness of winter has banished, been cast to the Southern Hemisphere.

But for now she can sink her hips down further into Katya’s, and Katya can pull her closer with one hand in her hair and the other on the small of her back; tickling and tapping.

“Hm, it’s a tiny town that can be awful, fucking _shit_ , really, but it’s what I know and I think I love it just a little, y’know?”. Each word that leaves her is honest and truthful, well thought out enough that Trixie doesn’t question her further and instead simply pecks at Katya’s lips once, twice, because she knows.

Katya loves the town just a little - loves _Trixie_ just a little.

“So you will come and visit me?”. She’s smug, a little bratty and whiny when Katya rolls her eyes playfully, digs her nails into the squishy skin of Trixie’s back. There’s no malice in her actions, but they do make Trixie’s hips buck noticeably, down into Katya’s lap.

Her breathing is already getting ragged, much like the movements of Katya’s hand in her mass of hair; tugging and threading, interweaving and releasing. It’s driving Trixie wild, as is the concoction of admiration and want she feels towards Katya.

It’s borderline stupidity, she thinks, when Katya’s releasing her hold on her hair, is moving her hand down Trixie’s body to cup her ass instead, squeeze it fruitfully.

“Shut it, Trix. I’m sure you could find another girl in this place that would gladly fuck you as often as you wanted”. Katya drawls, clicks her tongue against her teeth to emphasise her words.

It makes Trixie grimace, amongst a plethora of other things. Her spine tingles, because she doesn’t know if she wants another girl to fuck her, one that undoubtedly won’t have the same passion that Katya embodies, won’t have her vocabulary or her eyes - _those_ eyes - blue and crazy and pricked with speckles of moss.

She doesn’t want another girl that’s not _Katya_.

“I’m pretty sure the only other lesbian in this town is Kim, and I can’t have sex with her because she’s Kim and that’s just-“. Trixie pauses to mimic the action of dry heaving, gags against the back of her hand whilst imitating disgust.

“- _Weird_ ”.

Trixie’s response draws a hearty laugh from Katya, who can’t help from scrunching her eyes up in delight at Trixie’s humour, her positive outlook on most situations. Sitting back slightly, Trixie allows Katya the space she needs to plant her hands on Trixie’s thighs, stroke them up and down, back again.

“I can’t argue with that”. Katya admits, her short, clipped nails digging into Trixie’s upper thighs through the fabric of her tights. She’s careful not to scag them, Trixie’d kill her if she did, doesn’t spend too long dragging her nails over the fuzzy cotton.

Cackling indignantly, Trixie bumps the back of her hand against the back of Katya’s that’s still resting on her thigh, gripping it deathly tight. She pries one of Katya’s hands away, only to link their fingers together once again. Trixie lifts them to her face, where she’s able to kiss at Katya’s knuckles as she wishes to, pleases herself with sucking the tips of Katya’s fingers just slightly into her mouth.

Her eyes scream mischief, and Katya likes it. It makes her press her thumb into Trixie’s bottom lip, feel it slip on the spit and lip balm that Trixie’s chapped lips are still half coated with.

Katya drowns out the cave in her mind with the waves of sea that she can hear crashing outside the car, at the bottom of the cliff, if she listens carefully enough. She washes away sand and sediment, absorbs the fact that the conversation that had been hooking weights onto her tongue and eyelids has ended; diminished akin to one of the celebratory fireworks after its last quake.

“Do you know if your mom and dad are heading back home tonight?”. She tries, tucks a strand of Trixie’s hair behind her ear that had fallen into her face. Leaning her cheek into Katya’s touch, Trixie shrugs nonchalantly. She doesn’t know, and doesn’t care about her parents when Katya’s there and present, as bad as it sounds.

“I think they’re going to the drinks party up at the manor”.

“The Del Rio’s?”. Katya snorts inelegantly. She knows them as the most pompous family in town, that are so self absorbed they may as well hang portraits of themselves along the hallways in their home. She guesses they probably do, but Trixie’s raising her eyebrows, attempting to convince Katya that they’re not that bad.

Katya doesn’t believe her, but that’s not what matters to her when it clicks in her mind that Trixie’s house will be empty once again. Touching her hand to the waistband of Trixie’s skirt, Katya tugs once, lets it snap back against Trixie’s stomach. It makes her squeal unexpectedly, jerk in Katya’s lap.

The noise is ignored by Katya, purposefully, as she mulls over what to say next. She knows that no matter what, Trixie will probably nod her head yes, agree without any further questions. She’s proven right.

“Do you ‘wanna maybe, get a pizza and just - chill?”.

“Calm down, Grandma”. Trixie jokes, but her heart is beating wildly out of her throat at the prospect of such domesticity. It’s an unspoken confirmation before Katya even asks her for one again, with a grin that this time reaches her eyes and beyond.

“I’m serious I-“. Katya swallows once. “-I think it’d be nice. We could use that _massive_ bathtub of yours”.

Katya grins lopsidedly, listens to Trixie who’s groaning at the idea of being surrounded by warm bubbles and molten water, Katya’s legs and her breasts pressed against her back. She projects a _yeah_ , knows of the one joint in town that will be open at this time on New Years, simply to cash in on the sale opportunities.

Trixie’s back in the passengers seat within seconds, buckling her seatbelt with nimble fingers as Katya picks up her keys, kick starts the ignition. The engine rumbles to life, barely, the truck is getting old and Katya knows that it either needs renewing or replacing completely, but she doesn’t have the heart to get rid of the only vehicle she’s ever driven.

“Hold on, Trix. The roads are icy so this might be a bit of a rough ride”. Katya puts the truck in gear, reverses out of the parking lot with a practiced ease. The wheels turn slowly, trudge across the sandstone and grass that gets caught in the tyre tracks.

The only response Trixie gives is a wink.

*****

The pizza that they pick up from the joint on the outskirts of town is cold by the time they arrive at Trixie’s.

Katya suggests warming it in the microwave that she knows sits in the kitchen, but Trixie doesn’t trust it enough, yet. It’s still a new contraption that she’s not entirely used to; something that resembles an oven, only differs far from the conventional object.

It spins and rotates, glows yellow and gives Trixie a headache if she stares at it for too long, even if she’s had one looming over her in the kitchen since she was a child. She’s designated it for quickly heating up left over lasagna and cooking baked potatoes, but thinks she can live with cold pizza.

It doesn’t bother Katya. She’s perfectly content with eating it cold like Trixie is, is only concerned about guiding Trixie up the winding staircase and into the bathtub, where she’ll get to cover the both of them in soap suds and warm, soothing water.

Minutes is all it takes for them to empty the pizza box whilst they wait for the bath to run, with Trixie leaving behind the crusts to Katya’s horror - _because they’re boring_. Katya scoffs, leaves the room to discard the box in the bin in the kitchen.

She does so quickly, bounds back up the staircase two steps at a time, her hamstrings stretching. Its a bad idea, she concludes rapidly, her socks slip on the polished wood and her stomach churns with the heavy food that’s still fresh in her body. It makes her more out of breath than it should, but by the time she makes it back to the bathroom she’s regained both her aforementioned breath and balance.

Trixie’s there already, naked and submerged in the water that’s doing its job of defrosting the icicles that she feels must have formed on her skin throughout the course of the night. Her hair is tied loosely in a floral scrunchie atop her head, where some strands have managed to free themselves, dip into the foamy water.

She keeps her eyes closed, her expression so serene and peaceful that Katya wonders if she’s even heard her re-enter the room at first, until a grin breaks out across her face, and she’s looking over at Katya with blown out wide eyes, beckoning her closer with a curl of her two fingers.

Katya stalks over to her eagerly as Trixie sits up in the tub, shuffles forward to make room for Katya to sit behind her. She removes her socks, her underwear and her shirt that are still hugging her body, throws them to the corner of the room to join Trixie’s items of clothing.

She’s blushing under Trixie’s scrutiny in a way that she hasn’t before, but Trixie doesn’t seem to be letting up on her intense eagle eyed investigation, even as she lifts a hand to grip at Katya’s thigh when she steps into the bath.

A satisfied groan leaves Katya’s lips as her feet are enveloped by the water, followed by her hips and her stomach as she sits, places her legs on either side of Trixie’s hips. Trixie proceeds running her palms up and down Katya’s shins, allows the outgrowing prickles of blonde hair to drag against her fingertips that have already begun shrivelling from the water.

“Don’t-“. Katya’s chuckles halfheartedly, grasps Trixie’s hands to stop them from travelling further. She rests her chin on Trixie’s shoulder, eyes the beauty mark in the crook of her neck before she licks over it, presses ticklish kisses up and over her jaw.

“-I haven’t shaved”. Finishes Katya. They’re not words that are intended to make Trixie shiver, to cause her thighs to squeeze together subconsciously, but they do. She leans back into Katya’s embrace, allows Katya to guide her own hands up towards her breasts that are heavy and dense in her hold.

Trixie giggles airily, tilts her neck further so that Katya has better access to her neck, the tendons that are straining under Katya’s nips and pecks that she’s adamant about dotting all over Trixie; shoulders, collarbones, chin.

“I don’t care”. Breathes Trixie, her eyes fluttering closed.

“No?”.

“ _God_ no”. She whimpers. Katya’s hands are back on her thighs, spreading them open and pinching the soft flesh of the inner halves as Trixie’s elbows rest on the edges of the tub. The bones of her ankles hit the tub walls, too, bump uncomfortably.

It makes her legs clench around Katya’s hands, one that’s cupping the heat poring from her body and the other that’s tucked just underneath her knee. Katya almost snorts into her shoulder, distracts herself by turning Trixie’s face towards her own with the hand that isn’t occupied rubbing across her clit with a barely there touch.

Katya can feel Trixie’s chest heaving with every breath that she takes, the warm air being exhaled from her nose hitting Katya’s upper lip. She grins and croons, kisses Trixie’s parted lips eagerly and fervently when Trixie whimpers long and drawn out into her mouth.

Digging her teeth into Trixie’s bottom lip, Katya pulls back enough to make Trixie chase after her, nudge her head towards Katya blindly. Trixie’s needy, requires Katya to kiss her senseless and make her come with her name dripping off of her tongue.

 _Desperation_.

Trixie’s grinding her hips down into Katya’s touch as Katya moves her fingers up from Trixie’s chin and to her lips, pushes two fingers inside her mouth as she does so _lower_ , too. Trixie receives them gratefully, sucks on Katya’s two fingers right down to the knuckle, swirls her tongue around them whilst slamming her hips down tenderly, getting Katya to press as deeply inside of her as she can.

It has Katya’s pupils dilating, her own own body moving on its own accord, gyrating itself against the swell of Trixie’s ass - Trixie’s ass that’s so _soft_ , pliable, and her stomach that’s a little bloated from the pizza and the earlier beers - Katya loves how feminine she is.

She’s so womanly that Katya has to force herself to focus, not get herself off just by getting Trixie off, curling her fingers up inside of the blonde. Trixie’s sucking harder at her fingers before she gasps once, allows Katya to simply rest them on her tongue as her legs tremble.

“Harder”. Trixie slurs pleadingly.

Katya’s eyebrows furrow mockingly, and then she’s retracting her fingers from Trixie’s mouth, following the string of spit that comes out with them with her thirsty eyes. Trixie gasps once again, pants as she holds Katya’s wrist tight to her core with a quivering clench.

“What was that?”.

“ _Harder_ ”. Begs Trixie. She needs to come, now, with Katya kissing her neck and pressing against her walls that are so slick with desire that she struggles to find any friction, can’t keep a thumb steady on her clit with all of Trixie’s wetness and the water and the soap.

Katya hums, nods her head understandingly before halting the movements of her fingers inside of Trixie. It makes Trixie sob, bow her head so that she’s greeted with the vision of her own swollen breasts, slick with sweat and coated in suds.

“You ‘wanna come?”.

“Fuck, _yes_ ”. Trixie sobs, nods her head rapidly at Katya’s taunts. Her vision is blurry with tears that have gathered in her eyes, ones that are seconds away from cascading down the cliffs of her cheeks, into the water below them.

She needs to come, thinks she might lose her mind if she doesn’t, but Katya’s withdrawing her fingers completely from inside of Trixie, leaving Trixie a blubbering, snivelling mess. There are tears pooling underneath her eyes in overflowing puddles, and her chest is glowing with patches of pink and red; frustration.

“Turn around”. Katya demands, gripping at Trixie’s waist with all the strength that she possess in order to stop Trixie from toppling when she inevitably listens, lifts herself to her knees.

She’s shaky but she manages to do it, with Katya’s support and whispered encouragements when Trixie feels certain that she can’t do it, lacks the energy to swivel and straddle Katya’s thighs, wrap her legs securely around Katya’s waist that’s flexing with the effort.

The repositioning causes water to splash outside of the tub and onto the tiled bathroom floor, But Trixie doesn’t care, because Katya’s fingers are back inside of her, pumping and massaging so that Trixie’s curling up on top of her, moaning into the side of Katya’s hair.

She comes with her damp fingers in Katya’s fringe, pushing it back off of her forehead so that Trixie’s able to rest her own against the pale, moisturised skin. Katya grins with the feeling of Trixie clenching around her and at the girls thumb stroking at the faint scar upon her temple.

It’s barely noticeable, having been there since she fell of her skateboard as a young teenager, but she knows it’s there and so does Trixie, apparently, when she lifts her head to kiss at it. The action makes Katya’s eyes slip closed as she slides her fingers out of Trixie once again, rests her hand on Trixie’s ass.

It’s sweet, though it shouldn’t be. Katya doesn’t think sex is suppose to feel the way that it does every time with Trixie. Other people haven’t made her laugh with her mouth on them, or with their fingers jamming inside of her. They haven’t been able to make her want to wake up to them the following morning, with drool stained pillows and buttery morning breath -

But here she is with _Trixie_ , giggling into her neck as Trixie’s body is rocked with intense aftershocks and pleasant tingles, from her toes upwards.

Katya’s smirking, then, dunking her hand in the bubbles surrounding them. She lifts it up, whacks it back down onto Trixie’s ass with a force that makes Trixie squeal and look down at Katya with wide eyes and bitten lips

“ _Bubble butt_ ”.

*****

They’re curled up in Trixie’s bed within ten minutes, after Katya’s come on Trixie’s fingers, smoked a cigarette and extinguished it in Trixie’s bathroom sink.

Trixie’s content, as is Katya, when Trixie puts in the VHS of _Thelma and Louise_ that leaves her giggling quietly on occasions into the dishevelled mop of hair that sits upon Trixie’s head. Trixie giggles back, when Katya’s chest vibrates against her ear, makes her earrings jiggle in her lobes.

It’s different, for them.

A night together more often than not ends with Trixie passed out on the couch as soon as Katya comes, leaving Katya to smoke her cigarette alone, clad in only her socks and oversized shirt. Katya doesn’t mind it, because on the rare occasion they do make it to a bed they’re both sleeping within minutes, limbs draped clumsily over one and others, hair covering eyes and mouths so that when Trixie wakes up she’s spluttering inelegantly.

Katya looks down towards Trixie, revels in how the television makes her face gleam orange and red and violet. Their legs are intertwined loosely, and Katya’s toying with Trixie’s hair that’s almost completely fallen out of the make-shift up-do. She decides then that she likes this.

 _A lot_.

“You know-“. Katya begins, draws Trixie’s attention away from the credits that are now rolling on the television and up to her face, that’s illuminated only by the back light of the small, Tiffany bed side lamp.

“-If I wasn’t leaving town in like, six months, I would’ve asked you on a couple of dates by now”.

“What?”. Trixie’s blinking ferociously, but Katya’s not looking at her anymore. She’s staring at the pattern of the duvet that’s draped across her body, and swears that it’s more interesting than it actually is; all lemon and lavender flower petals.

Inhaling deeply, Katya draws on the ounce of courage that’s wallowing in her stomach, coughs it up into her throat where she’s able to transform it into words that make sense to Trixie’s ears and her sleepy, satisfied mind. Her gaze darts from said duvet across to Trixie, who’s lifting her head off of Katya’s chest in order to lay it on the duck feathered pillow that they’re both sharing.

“Yeah-“. Elaborates Katya.

She wants to tell Trixie that she’s the best girl that she’s ever met, and that she doubts she’ll ever meet another _Trixie Mattel_ anywhere across Europe, but she’s staring directly at Trixie’s lips, and all that’s flashing in her mind is those lips wrapped around a straw, sucking and drinking.

“-You _know_ I think you’re great and - there’s this really cute milkshake place a few towns away that I would’ve liked to have taken you to. It could’ve been really cute”.

Katya huffs, and Trixie’s looking at her with an expression that Katya can’t pin point. She thinks it’s a combination of both sympathy and understanding, compassion and longing, which has Katya wishing that she hadn’t brought up the subject minutes previously.

“-Katya”. Trixie attempts, only for Katya to cut her off immediately.

“It would have-“. Katya nods. “-We could’ve like, I don’t know, worked this place out a ‘lil more”.

Trixie knows what she means without having to ask Katya to explain. The towns so much larger than the beach with the rickety pier and suburban houses, so much bigger than the hilltop manors that only the wealthiest residents own. This town is Katya, her mom and her dad, her friends and Trixie. Katya’s telling her that they could have worked the entire place out; could have worked the both of _them_ out.

Trixie laughs immediately, but there’s a dagger in her heart that’s twisting and turning, a rope around her neck that’s tightening with every breath and swallow that makes her heart clench, then fragment into microscopic grains of sand.

“You’re an _idiot_. Go to sleep”. Trixie nudges Katya’s shoulder, and Katya grunts out a noncommittal agreement. She loops her arm around Trixie’s waist, squeezes once, twice, places an open mouthed kiss to Trixie’s puckered lips.

Katya will listen and sleep, Trixie knows, but doubts that she herself will. There’s a ferris wheels rotating in her mind and popcorn machine popping in her stomach, filling her lungs with toxicity.

Trixie doesn’t think she’s ever disliked the town more.


	3. 1997 (part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unknown number: Hi Trixie. I got this number (I hope it’s u) from some girl at the community centre who said she knew u? Pearl? anyway, was wondering if u wanted to meet sometime today? xx
> 
> Unknown number: This is Katya by the way xx
> 
> Trixie: Katya as in green truck Katya? and 2day?
> 
> Unknown number: I’m glad that’s how u remember me, and yeah, today (if u want) xx
> 
> Trixie: When and where?
> 
> Unknown number: Bench at the end of the pier, 11? xx
> 
> Trixie: I’ll see u there x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back with an update 71 years later!! 
> 
> no but seriously you guys, thank you so so much for all of the support on this fic! i love writing it and knowing you all enjoy it is just,, so great!!
> 
> with that said, this chapter is an entire mess of feels that i’ve had to split in to two parts because otherwise it would have been l o n g
> 
> if you haven’t worked out that Trixie’s a mess already then you’re about to in this part
> 
> anyway, i hope you enjoy!! (part 2 should be up within the next couple of days) ♡

Trixie doesn’t like black coffee.

She finds it dry, bitter and unpleasant to the taste when she sips at it, swallows it in gulps to avoid it brushing against her tastebuds. It’s a harsh and acquired preference, with its earthy undertones and caffeine kicks that make her eyes stand on stalks and her fingertips tremble.

Sometimes she wishes that she liked it, just so that she could apply the things that she associates with black coffee to herself. She thinks that people who drink it are organised, motivated and brash, to the extent that Trixie almost finds herself envying them when she sips at her own drink.

She sticks to the same order every time she visits the coffee shop by the seafront; _green tea_. It never occurs to her that she might like another option if she were to try it, because she never dares to flicker her eyes across the menu board that’s sketched out elegantly in white and pink chalk.

The woman that’s worked there for as long as Trixie can recall, all greying hair and overly welcoming smiles, knows her order off by heart. She has done for years, and although it’s not a complicated order to remember, Trixie still admires the woman’s attentiveness towards her loyal customers.

She doubts it’s a skill she could ever manage to master, the art of connecting a persons face or name instantly to their beverage of choice. The woman knows that Julie from the post office, wire rimmed glasses and pinafores, orders a cappuccino to keep her on her toes all day, compared to Beth who works at the towns high school; she has a large hot cocoa to lull her into relaxation.

It makes Trixie sigh, because she can barely remember the names of her students at the kindergarten most days, no matter how hard she tries. It grates on her, itches at her skin, because teaching kids is her job and she doubts her ability at in still, with summer break in full swing.

She’s been working at _Little Steps_ for over three years now, will be beginning her fourth in the fall once summer is over and the leaves upon the trees in her yard have begun morphing from green to auburn like they do religiously, every late September. The thought has Trixie mulling over what she can try this coming year, how to best go about deciphering the _Katie’s_ from the _Kelly’s_ and the _James_ ’ from the _Jamie’s_ , because so far; she’s managed to think of nothing.

Countless tactics have been tested, ones that Trixie’s been certain should have worked but haven’t. They’ve left her tongue tied and downtrodden, when she’s been covered in the glitter that half of her class have spilt across the room whilst designing themselves name tags that Trixie was positive would work -

Until she realised that five years olds handwriting isn’t the best. It’s ineligible, messy scrawls and scribbles that would be better off adorning the walls of an abstract gallery than the laminated cards that end up in the bin, covered by apple cores and banana peels.

It’s nothing short of bad, chaotically infuriating, really, but Trixie forces it to the back of her mind in lieu of focusing on the peddling motion of her legs. Her right is her power leg, as she’s riding the length of the boulevard that runs from one end of the beach to the next, other goers skateboarding and roller skating and running.

Trixie doesn’t know how they manage to do that, either, but she knows that if she doesn’t concentrate she’s going to trip, fall and catch the skin of her ankles in the chain of her bike. She’s done it one too many times to be comfortable with, and Trixie’s almost hell bent on making it to the other end of the town - where the pier is - without any _major_ disasters.

She thinks she’s doing pretty good thus far.

Her hair is scraped up into a high pony tail, secured with a dark raspberry a crunchy that allows the occasional strand to fall, frame her face with ease. The swishing tail falls only to the base of her neck, where she finds it tickles her skin with every gust of wind that passes as her cycling picks up speed down the slight slope. She doesn’t mind it, it’s the least of her worries when her sweaty palms are gripping the handle bars with a ferocity that she only wishes she could muster when it comes to opening jars, or carrying stacks of book and toys to different classes.

The seat of her bike is comprised of sturdy leather - pink, of course. Trixie wants to roll her eyes at how predictable she’s becoming - and is so small that it causes her inner thighs to rub together until they’re prickled with heat rash, and jiggle as she rides over bumps in the worn out concrete of the sidewalk.

She can feel the eyes of passers by being drawn receptively to her, because she knows that she’s a sight for sore eyes with her denim shorts that are digging into her waist, and her navy and white stripped t-shirt that’s stretched across her breasts. It’s becoming near see through with the amount she’s been sweating, with the energy that she’s using to peddle in the hundred degree heat, and she wants to peel it away from her overheated flesh.

Visions trace through her mind of the fabric floating through the air, landing in the sea and drifting away, akin to her mind that’s ringing with the thump of her own heartbeat. She wants to rip that out too, her heart, because the continuous pattern of blood coursing through her veins is betraying her more than she thought was possible.

It shouldn’t be pacing as quickly as it is, she’s more than aware of that fact as she rounds the next corner, pulls on the break of her bike just enough to stop the wheels from skidding. It’s not the moderate exercise - Trixie’s physically fitter than most people give her credit for - but the niggling feeling of knowing that the last message that lays in her phone has been sent and presumably delivered to the recipient on the other side has Trixie shivering.

Trixie can’t pin point the exact emotion that the knowledge makes her feel, but knows that it’s made her discard her usual green tea in the front basket of her bike, caused her to layer on a coat of sheer, metallic lipstick that she wouldn’t have worn otherwise.

 _Probably_.

Her eyes flash with the words that she’d read, the ones that she’d had to extent her arm to the ceiling of the café in order to respond to. The satellite signal in the town is awful, and it had had Trixie longing for the second time that day that she lived in a bigger city; pylons and skyscrapers that would make her feel as if her skeleton was that of an ants, or a beetle waiting to be crushed by the sole of a shoe.

The tingling in her spine still hasn’t quelled when the sight of the bench that she’s heading to comes into view towards the end of the pier. There’s sea breeze in her nostrils and salt matting up her unruly hair that’s already beginning to bother her. She’ll wash it as soon as she arrives home, because it’s a mess, will allow the shower to drown out her insistent consciousness as the steam fogs up the glass.

It’s _stupid_ , because Trixie’s in her element.

It’s summer, she reminds herself, scorching and blistering August that makes the freckles on her cheeks appear more prominent and enhances the subtle tan that glows from within on her skin. Her hair is lighter, too, with the UV rays of the sun bleaching the tendrils better than salons and home dye-kits from the drugstore.

Trixie likes it, revels in how the depths of her eyes appear less sunken in than they normally do in the autumn and especially the winter, when the town gets party cold; unreasonably so. She wishes they’d look the same all year round, noticeably golden and reflectively chestnut when she stares at herself in the artificially lit mirror of her bathroom.

It’s _stupid_ , because Trixie’s uncertain.

 _Unsure_.

She thinks she’s grappled ahold of what the buzzing in her joints means, albeit by a singular thread. She feels dubious, precarious as she reaches the end of the pier, dismounts her bike and props it up against one of the lampposts that’s shedding its glossy layer of black paint.

It’s not something that she’s felt in a while, she believes, _years_ , if she jogs her memory back to when she lived fearfully, existed purely in a state of unforeseeable circumstances. Trixie hasn’t told herself that she needs to plan the remainder of her life in advance since she’d started teaching. Has refused to let her aversion to change weigh down her legs as she walks since before then, too.

But Trixie’s sighing raggedly, clutching her Polaroid camera that she keeps on the basket of her bike in her hands as she perches on the bench, feels it creak beneath the pressure of her limbs. There’s a section of her mind that wants it to do so, to send her worries tumbling along with her body, though she knows it’s futile and impertinent -

She can already see the recipient of her messages, walking from the other end of the beach and onto the pier, where she pauses to glance around briskly. It has bile rising in the back of Trixie’s throat, until she’s swallowing it down in hearty gulps that she knows she has to before it begins to heat up, boil over and out of her mouth.

Inhaling, Trixie averts her eyes.

The camera in her hands is grounding her, keeping her from floating away and popping on the serrated branch of a willow in the park across town. Trixie’s grateful for it, even more so when she lifts it, captures the spectacle of the end of the pier being engulfed by both waves and seagulls, the occasional parent and child who’s stuffing sticky candy floss or dripping ice cream eagerly into their mouths.

It’s not as busy as Trixie thought it would be at this end of town, the beach and the pier. She supposes the rush will hit a little later, around lunch or when the temperatures have ceased and refuse to increase further to unattainable heights. Either way, Trixie muses, she’s thankful for the relative peace that surrounds her momentarily, as she lifts the camera once again, focuses it on a scene she thinks is picturesque.

 _Click_. The camera. _Click_. Shoes upon the wooden boards.

Trixie doesn’t want to lift her head. She knows that when she does, she’ll be there, clomping in her platform sandals and fidgeting with adjusting her shirt. It’s not a sight that Trixie’s prepared for, though doubts she will be anytime soon because she’s _twenty three_ -

Trixie’s _twenty three_ , and then she’s not.

Katya’s there, sauntering towards Trixie with a nervous spring in her walk, a floral clip in her hair, and a crocheted bag slung over one shoulder. It’s familiar to Trixie immediately; the interwoven strands of tough yarn and the pin-back badges that have adorned the strap for as long as Trixie thinks she’s capable of remembering.

With every step closer she gets, Trixie can feel the thumb of whatever god she may or may not believe in pressing at the rewind button on the remote control to her existence.

Trixie’s _twenty three_ and successful, she thinks, she has her own house and a car and a job that she’s come to adore, until she’s _twenty_ and only just receiving her teaching certificate. It’s crisp and fresh in between her fingertips, slotting keys into locked doors.

She’s _twenty_ , until the button is pressed again and then Trixie’s _nineteen_ , sobbing into the rugged fabric of Kim’s shirt because it’s the summer of ‘ _92_ and Katya’s gone. She has been for a while, too long, and Trixie’s accepting it with a punch to the gut and a needle to her eye that allows her to see nothing clearly.

Frigid hate fills ever cell of her body, that’s shaking, twisting and preparing to leave without a single word. She could do so, but she’s eighteen, then, laughing until she’s crying and warming her cold palms with the heaters in Katya’s pick up truck that’s on its last legs.

It jerks and stutters, fails to start on more occasions than it works these days, with both Trixie and Katya fumbling in the back seats, destroying the leather and elbowing the delicate plastic of the handles used to wind down the windows. Trixie’s been insisting for months that Katya should just get a new one, but Katya’s adamant that it works, for now, and will do until she can afford to fork out the money for a new one.

Trixie kind of loves how determined she is.

Lifting her head, Trixie trains her observations on Katya, _twenty three_ year old Katya who’s plastering a façade of confidence across her features. She can tell it’s fake from how Katya’s shoulders are slumped the most minuscule amount, and by her tongue that’s poking at the inside of her left cheek, licking across her teeth.

It has Trixie wanting to tell her to _stop_ the moment that she begins doing it, but then she’s sitting, wordlessly, folding her legs underneath herself on the empty space that Trixie’s left on the bench.

She keeps her eyes locked with Trixie’s, and Trixie’s stomach is churning with every blink of her eyelashes. It sends the razor blades in Trixie’s gut cutting deeper, until she can feel it shrinking, expanding, draining itself of blood in the pit of her stomach.

Trixie doesn’t know, but she thinks that she’s going to be sick if Katya doesn’t stop. She needs her to vanish, to flap her wings akin to the seagulls that have been captured eternally in the Polaroid that’s almost fully developed, disappear into the burning sphere in the sky that’s blurring Trixie’s eyesight.

Katya clears her throat, and doesn’t do as Trixie wishes she would. She begins tapping her nails across her knee instead, digs her nails into the tanned skin that’s gleaming with faint blonde hairs - Trixie notices how said nails are still has short as she remembers Katya always keeping them, chipped with a dark green polish - until Trixie smiles; tight lipped and bitter.

“Hi”. Breathes Trixie.

Her voice breaks quicker than she anticipated it would, and Katya’s pressing her own lips painfully together, much like Trixie had, arching her eyebrows too. She shuffles subconsciously closer to Trixie, who furrows her forehead in response. She still doesn’t know what Katya’s doing, or what she herself is doing, if she’s honest with both herself and the universe.

She’s here because Katya had asked her to be; the messages are still projected onto the walls of her mind, transitioning seamlessly from one to the next until they’re over with the image of Trixie hoping on her bike, forgetting about her tea, her commitments and priorities.

**_Unknown number_ : Hi Trixie. I got this number (I hope it’s u) from some girl at the community centre who said she knew u? Pearl? anyway, was wondering if u wanted to meet sometime today? xx**

**_Unknown number_ : This is Katya by the way xx**

**_Trixie_ : Katya as in green truck Katya? and 2day?**

**_Unknown number_ : I’m glad that’s how u remember me, and yeah, today (if u want) xx**

**_Trixie_ : When and where?**

**_Unknown number_ : Bench at the end of the pier, 11? xx**

**_Trixie_ : I’ll see u there x**

Trixie had saved the number with shaky thumbs under a contact named simply _Katya_ , and reminds herself of that as Katya proceeds nodding her head towards her. Uncertainty is still prevalent both on Trixie’s face and inside of her head, where she’s convincing herself, or at least attempting to, that this is _normal_.

She knows somewhere in the back of her mind that it’s not. Trixie has a high enough sense of self worth to know that the drummer in her heart is acting out of line, and that she shouldn’t be as elated to see Katya as she’s beginning to feel.

They haven’t seen each other in years, haven’t spoken either, and Trixie’s kicking herself for noticing the fine lines around Katya’s eyes that have deepened, her lips that aren’t quite as full and plump as they used to be. There’s the hair also, though Trixie feels like it’s most definitely an obvious change, one that any individual could have picked up on.

It’s longer than Trixie recalls, flowing down to just above her breasts in unruly waves. The fringe that Trixie used to be fond of has all but disappeared, has grown enough so that it blends in as shorter layers into the remainder of the locks.

It has Trixie wanting to run her fingers through the ends that are slightly frizzy and damaged thanks to the humidity, because there’s something quintessentially 70’s San Francisco Lesbian about the way Katya looks, sitting staunchly on the bench with her legs crossed and ankles bouncing. Her paisley print cutoff shorts are baggy around her thighs, as is the white shirt - covered in stains of paint - that she’s knotted around her waist so that it sits cropped, exposing a singular section of sun kissed midriff.

Looking back towards Katya’s face, Trixie shakes herself, because Katya being here is normal, she reassures herself.

 _Normal_.

“Hey-”.

Katya’s response is husky and almost laughable. Trixie can hear the years of cigarette smoke clinging to her voice, latching themselves onto her vocal cords. She knows that Katya knows what she’s thinking too, because the other girl clears her throat within seconds, is looking back at Trixie apologetically.

“-How are you?”. Trixie’s back to wanting to rip her own hair out at Katya’s words. They’re spoken so nonchalantly and effortlessly that Trixie’s beginning to question if anything is real; if the sky is a painting and if the waves of the sea are a hologram - if Katya’s a figment of her imagination.

Trixie contemplates reaching out to tap at Katya’s shoulder, of her fingers that are still dancing rhythmically across her knee. They scream nervousness, even if the rest of Katya’s aura and being don’t, and they ease Trixie’s thoughts back down to earth with sandbags that spill as soon as they hit the ground.

“I’m-“. Trixie begins, toys with the words in her mouth before she laces them between her teeth. She can feel them scraping at her gums, knows the connotations behind aren’t entirely convincing to Katya, or herself. Twisting her body slightly, she mirrors Katya, folds her legs up underneath her body so that the planks of the bench dig uncomfortably into the skin of her thighs.

“-Yeah, I’m good”.

“Good?”.

“Really good”.

“ _Good_ ”. Katya swallows.

Pausing, Trixie inhales a hot breath. She snorts inelegantly, scrunches up her nose until Katya’s giggling, chuckling, laughing heartily in her face so that Trixie can’t help but follow her actions. Her head hurts, is beginning to pound as quickly and as harsh as her heart is because this isn’t normal, Trixie notes.

It’s ludicrous, insane, and Trixie’s busy searching for words that she knows she’s not going to find, not with Katya’s blue eyes that borderline on being classed as green staring back at her. They pierce through her skin, bury so deep into her irises that Trixie can feel Katya’s fingers prodding at her brain, trying to work her out again.

Trixie’s tempted to allow her to do so, when Katya shrugs her bag off of her shoulder, lets it fall to the small amount of space left between her and Trixie. The cotton brushes at Trixie’s thigh, causes goosebumps to arise on her skin, but she doesn’t have the strength to push it away as Katya’s getting closer still, forcing the bag unwittingly further into Trixie’s space.

She gives Katya what’s meant to be a fleeting glance, that rapidly transforms into a lingering gaze. She can’t pry her eyes away from the tendons in Katya’s legs, how they flex whenever she moves, or from the way the soft skin of her stomach creases as she rests an arm on the back of the bench.

Trixie wants to squish it between her fingertips, but realises that she can’t stop her eyes from being fixated on Katya’s face, either. Her expressions are contorted, almost unreadable with her endearing eyes and charming persona that contradict the grimace hidden behind her lips.

Katya’s shifting nervously once again under Trixie’s intense scrutiny, running her fingers through the front strands of hair that are blowing onto her face with the pipping summer air. The tendrils framing her face are sticking to her forehead with sweat, getting caught in the sticky lipgloss that Trixie’s assumed Katya has coating her lips.

She wants to brush it away, smudge the tacky gel over Katya’s cheeks and into the peach fuzz that coats the entirety of her skin. Her skin that’s more tanned than Trixie thinks she’s ever seen it, olive and golden and noticeably burnt in patches -

But then she’s free falling.

Questions are crumbling out of her brain and into her mouth, from between her teeth and outwards to Katya’s ears that listen intently. Trixie’s cursing herself even as she speaks, because Katya looks terrified of her, even if she knows that she’s the only person able to give Trixie the answers that she’s been craving since she’d hit send on her first message.

_“I didn’t know you were back?”._

_“When did you get back?”._

_“Where are you staying?”._

_“Why did you want to see me?”._

Katya’s breathing deeply. She can see the cogs turning in Trixie’s head, through her skin and skull that are vibrating with queries. The answers are there, ready and waiting, written in the lines on the palms of Katya’s hands that she needs to present to Trixie.

They’re easily decipherable. She thinks that Trixie will be able to ghost her fingertips over them, nod her head understandingly if she’s lucky, and prepare more questions that will inevitably be fired in Katya’s direction with arrows and a cross bow.

Katya’s happy for her to do so, and clears her throat, clicks the bones of her jaw so that Trixie’s aware of the words, the sentences and possible paragraphs that she has brewing.

Flicking her tongue across her lips, Katya allows her eyes to flutter closed.

“Today or in five years?”. Trixie prompts unexpectedly. Her tone is bitter, even to her own ears, and she’s shocked at the force at which the words must come across to Katya. She’s frowning as soon as she’s said them, as is Katya.

She looks hurt, and it takes Trixie a moment to realise that she thinks she should - she looks as hurt as Trixie feels, because she doesn’t know why Katya’s here, with different hair and the same mannerisms that she recognises after five years. They’re years of growth, development and experience that make Trixie’s eyes water when she thinks about them, draw shudders to her rib cage and palpitations to her heart.

Katya nods her head once. She gets it, then. Trixie’s angry, feels betrayed, and rightfully so, she thinks. She’s broken promises that she’d whispered into the darkness of Trixie’s bedroom, under heavy duvet covers and even weightier emotions that blanketed them in serenity. She’s failed to do things that she told Trixie she would when she left the town, without Trixie asking for her to.

Postcards that she’d picked up from tourist ridden cafés were never sent because they weren’t ever written in, photographs of Katya to keep Trixie updated on her journey across Europe and her whereabouts were never delivered to Trixie’s mailbox, because Katya had never captured them; _regretfully_.

She’s left wishing, longing that she had when Trixie looks at her with those puffy doe eyes - god those eyes, Katya feels like an idiot - because Katya knows.

_It’s been five years._

“I got back a couple of weeks ago-“. Katya elaborates, to which Trixie blinks once in response. It’s a go-ahead signal for Katya continue, and she does, with her stomach in her throat and her nerves under her foot.

“-I’m staying at my moms place, just for a ‘lil while. Y’know, until I’ve got everything a little more figured out. But I uh-“. Katya halts, twists her fingers in loops, cracks her knuckles habitually. Trixie despises how they disconnect and crunch, and Katya can see it in how she recoils instantaneously.

She drops her hands to her lap.

“-I’ve got a ‘sorta job at the community centre. Art classes, that ‘kinda thing. I’m back, I guess”.

“You’re _back_?”.

“I wanted to make sure I was definitely ‘gonna stick around before trying to get in contact with you and I guess, well I’m not planning on leaving. so, yeah, I’m _back_ ”.

Trixie nods her head, though is left standing puzzled at most of Katya’s explanation. It’s baffling, to an extent, because most of Trixie’s friends and acquaintances had up and left the town years ago, had found better jobs in bigger cities that were ten times as big the one surrounding Trixie. They’d made their decisions with ease, but now Katya’s here, telling Trixie the kindergarten teacher that she’s _back_.

She’s working at the community centre and living with her mom temporarily but she’s _back_ , and it’s a thought that succeeds in making Trixie happier than she cares to admit.

“How did you know I’d still be here?”. Trixie asks slowly. The question leaves her mouth at snail pace and mouse volume, so timidly that Katya has to strain her ears in order to hear Trixie clearly amidst the children that have decided to run ragged around them.

“I didn’t”. Katya shrugs. She looks drained, her mouth noticeably down turned and her eyes drooping at the corners. It’s a sight that has Trixie almost pitying her, but then Katya’s smiling softly, and Trixie’s resisting the urge to reach out and take ahold of Katya’s hand.

It’d be easy to do so, to interweave their fingers effortlessly with one and others. Katya’s still wearing the same gold ring that she’s always worn on the index finger of her right hand, and Trixie wants it slotting between her own index and middle fingers like it used to, bumping firstly against her knuckles.

Trixie’s locked in a haze as a flock of seagulls fly over head. She can hear them cawing, screeching somewhere in the back of her mind over the echo of her pulsing blood. She wants both noises to quell, even if it’s just so that she can focus on the dead weight of her tongue in her mouth, and the smell of Katya’s breath that becomes even more prominent with each fraction of an inch she gets closer to Trixie - all _mint mint mint._

“I’ve never left”. Admits Trixie. She smiles sheepishly, acknowledges the blush that she just knows is flaring up on her cheeks. She feels as if she’s been whacked across the face full force, with realisation and obliviousness as Katya nods affirmatively, hums her understanding melodically.

“It’s a good town. There’s no reason to leave”. Katya concurs.

She’s still looking up towards Trixie, smiling warmly and welcoming. It makes Trixie smile tentatively in response, because this is Katya, somebody who knows Trixie better than all of her friends, any other ex- _something_ , her family, even. It’s a wretched thought to have, especially when Trixie can feel herself extending a branch towards Katya, waving it in her direction so that she grabs ahold of it, digs her nails into the wood until she’s left with sharp splinters in her cuticles.

Katya coughs, covers her mouth with the hand that’s not gripping her knee.

There’s an undeniable rift between them, despite that. Trixie’s left haunted by how quickly Katya’s able to change her attitude, and in turn convert Trixie’s pretensions towards her. It’s maddening how all Trixie’s thinking of then is that she needs a familiar face.

 _Katya_ \- she’s a familiar face.

“We should catch up some time”. Offers Trixie, leaves Katya grinning so widely that she’s sure her cheeks might split, or at the very least ache deeply. The sight makes Trixie chuckle, because Katya’s nodding her head yes pulling the hem of her shirt down cautiously, so that it covers more of her stomach.

“Yeah, totally, I’m down”.

“Great”.

“Are you free tonight?-”. Blurts Katya. It’s sudden, and Trixie’s eyes bulge ever so slightly when Katya winces at the pitch of her own voice, how eager she sounds. Nibbling at her bottom lip, Trixie pauses, waits for the elaboration that she knows is coming when Katya waves her hand dismissively.

“It’s just, I heard it was the mid-summer festival tonight and I - yeah - I ‘kinda wanted some company. I wanted _you_ to be my company”. Katya’s acting sheepishly, so that Trixie’s moulded into a state of confusion and further uncertainty.

Trixie notes that it’s a recurring theme.

She wants to go but she doesn’t, not really. Spending even a fraction of a second more with Katya sounds nothing short of appealing, but the thought of having to say goodbye to that again, for the second time, has Trixie contemplating saying no, if only to avoid the attachment that she just knows is going to come with it.

Katya’s the one ex- _something_ , as Trixie’s coined, that she’d allow back into her life without a bat of an eyelid. It’s both equally terrifying and reassuring, to know that yes, Trixie wants her, but also doesn’t want to have to knock down walls that she’s built around herself out of Lego bricks and food colouring-dyed sand.

It’s an entire inner conflict that Trixie decides that she doesn’t have the time for, then, so she nods, twirls a strand of hair that’s escaped from her pony tail around her forefinger.

“Yeah, Yeah I am, sure”.

Katya continues talking, and Trixie manages to grasp fragments of what she’s seemingly rambling on about - slot machines and seven in the evening and comfortable shoes - but she’s not entirely focused.

Her head hurts with the heat and the sun, and Katya’s voice that’s droning on inside of her ear drums. Trixie knows that she doesn’t mean it; Katya’s excited and back and everything new again, but Trixie’s ready to leave, curl up in the cool sheets of her bed until she has to leave again.

“Yeah?”. Katya interrupts.

Trixie gulps, stands briskly.

“ _Yeah_ ”.

*****

The heat of the day dissipates quickly when the evening arrives.

The sun is still out, peaking from behind the clouds even as it threatens to set within the coming hour. It casts hues of lilac, rose and orange across the town, and Trixie watches them transform into deeper versions of their former selves from where she’s stood by the slot machines.

It’s three minutes to seven. Trixie can tell from the tick of her watch that’s strapped to her wrist, the leather leaving imprints of the strap in her skin. She knows she’s going to be left with a distinctive tan line from it when she takes it off at the end of the night, sets it on her bed side table next to a tall glass of water and her reading glasses.

It’s because she’s been out in the sun for a lot of the day, riding her bike, taking photographs. She wishes she hadn’t done so momentarily, she can feel her shoulders burning even in the now less scorching eighty five degree weather, and kicks herself for not layering on the aftersun lotion during the free time she’s spent at home.

 _Home_.

It’s a strange word that Trixie’s not entirely sure she understands anymore. This town is supposedly her home, and her cramped two bed cottage that’s no more than ten minutes away from the beach is her house, too. Her _home_.

Shaking her head towards herself, puffing out her cheeks in frustration, Trixie lays her gaze on what - _who_ \- had kick started the thought. Blonde and vivacious, energetic and cautious.

It’s Katya - of _course_ it is, Trixie scoffs - who’s nearing Trixie rapidly, pacing the floorboards beneath the slot machines that creak and whine, despite being topped with carpet that’s stained with drinks, food, bubblegum. It’s not a pleasant sight, she guesses, but Katya is as she plants her feet firmly on the ground opposite Trixie.

She’s changed outfits since the afternoon, as has Trixie. Her bootcut denim pants and white halter top make Trixie feel over dressed in her pink mini skirt and tube top, sunglasses upon her head, but Katya’s eyeing her, almost salivating at the sight.

Her eyes are blown wide, pupils dilated, and Trixie wonders if she’s encountered a single girl - or guy - at all over in Europe, with the way she rakes her eyes from Trixie’s coifed hair to her toes.

They’re painted with a periwinkle nail varnish that’s one of Trixie’s favourites from the drug store, and poke out of her open toed sandals just enough so that Katya’s able to see the colour. She rolls her eyes, locks them with Trixie’s, then.

“Are you sure those shoes are comfy?”.

“ _No_ ”.

Katya snorts bashfully at Trixie’s honestly, nods her head in polite greeting. Hellos don’t feel appropriate, Katya muses. Hellos mean that there’s been a goodbye, only sometime previously, and Katya’s keen to forget about that.

She’s flushing her goodbyes down the toilet, watching them swirl down the drain and into the sewage pipes where they’ll be free to rot. She thinks it’s a good riddance, especially when she discards her later’s and eventually’s in the garbage disposal, listens to them crunch and gargle until they’re pulverised; _destroyed_.

She simply hopes that Trixie knows what she’s doing, and thinks that she does when Trixie motions in the general direction of where they need to be heading. She tilts her head, watches Trixie lick over her lips once, twice, that appear to be bare.

“Shall we get moving?”.

“Where are ‘ya planning on starting?”. Katya queries. Her steps fall easily in line with Trixie’s, despite the other girls legs being considerably longer than her own. Katya eyes them covertly, only stops doing to when Trixie snaps her fingers, draws Katya back to the present that’s all violet skies and whirring fairground music, children’s screeches and Trixie.

“Arcade?”.

“Sure”.

They walk in silence, Trixie leading ever so slightly though with Katya hot on her heels. Her own shoes clobber unlike Katya’s, whose shuffle almost mutely. Trixie envies her and her comfortability when the backs of her heels start stinging, blistering irritatingly, but she knows she looks good.

 _Hell_ , Trixie looks ravishing, dainty in her mostly pink and lavender outfit. She knows it as well as Katya does, when the backs of their hands brush against one and others. She wants to give in, take ahold of Katya’s hand and scrape the remnants of her nail polish off for her, but Katya looks as if she’s submerged so deep in her own thoughts that she might drown if she doesn’t come up for air.

She’s observing her surroundings tactically, and Trixie can manage it takes a lot of concentration, not to mention effort to work out the town again. It’s as if Katya’s sketching herself out a map in her mind - of the boulevard and the suburbs, the arcade that they’re nearing and the weathered pier.

Trixie admires her self discipline, and the excitement that’s raucous in her voice when she steps into the arcade, taps her fingers on the plastic casing of a worn out claw machine. She leaves behind greasy fingerprints from her hands that are likely saturated in moisturiser, but the glint in her eyes is infectious, and easily finds its way to Trixie’s grin, her gleeful expression.

“Remember when you used to work here?”. Katya breathes.

She can remember kissing Trixie senseless in the photo booth, rubbing at her panties under her skirt and watching her face light up in the glow of the orange fluorescent lighting. It’s a sight that Katya’s thought about, sometimes, when she’s been stuck in traffic and the amber light begins to flash, illuminates the interior of her pickup truck.

Katya thinks she still has the photo set somewhere, maybe hidden in the bottom of a suitcase. She hopes to god she does, wants to show them to Trixie in order to watch her features grow reminiscent, hear her tone go soft and supple.

“I liked that job”. Chuckles Trixie, blushes at the teasing expression upon Katya’s face and the thoughts undoubtedly running through her head on a cinema reel; Trixie wants to rewind it just to watch it play out again.

 _Repeat_.

“Do you still see Kim?”. Katya prods. She doesn’t want Trixie to talk about anything that she doesn’t want to, can see from the light grimace that crosses her face that maybe mentioning Kim wasn’t the best idea. It’s not intrusion, but she’s curious. More so than she’s ever been about anything or anybody because Trixie’s here, and so is she.

_They’re older._

Trixie clears her throat, tucks the hair that’s fallen onto her face back behind her ear. She’s regretful that she didn’t simply leave it in a pony tail like she had earlier in the day, but heaven be damned, Trixie decides, if she’s not going to allow her hair to flow how she knows that Katya likes it.

“We talk on the phone sometimes-“. Trixie sighs raggedly. “-But not _really_ ”.

It doesn’t work. Kim had left town a year or so ago, moved two or three states north in order to land her dream job editing some magazine that Trixie’s neglected to remember the name of. Trixie’s proud of her, unquestionably, and loves Kim like a second sister, but it doesn’t work.

It can’t, not when Trixie spends her days pressing gold stars onto self portraits that five year olds have made out of macaroni, glitter and paint, and Kim goes through hers using the newest _Windows ‘95_ editing software.

She can see Katya smiling sympathetically up at her, from where she’s dropped a stuffed toy that resembles a koala mistakably back into the pit of the claw machine. She looks defeated, and Trixie wonders briefly is she is, before she’s pulling Trixie along the corridor of the large arcade, out of the doors on the opposite end and back out into the open air of the night.

Trixie’s grateful for the cool air that caresses her over heated skin, even more so when Katya’s nails dig into her wrist. They burn, of course they burn, but Trixie likes the feeling of knowing that Katya’s there, holding onto Trixie as if she’s contemplating chaining herself to her.

“What brought you back?”.

It’s the one question that Trixie’s yet to receive an answer to, and it pours from her lips in crimson droplets before she’s able to stop it. She watches it was over Katya, paint the entirety of her body in a flaming disguise that makes Trixie recoil.

They’re walking somewhere, Trixie’s not sure where, she thinks maybe towards the restaurants that are clustered in one end of the town and hopes that she’s right - she wants to wash the day away with a glass of wine that will blur her vision and slur her speech; _promisingly_.

She’s drawn out of her thoughts by Katya shrugging, gesturing at their surroundings. The cobbled walkways are chipped and uneven, and Trixie’s made to watch where she steps cautiously in order to avoid tumbling in her shoes that are, as Katya had assumed, the furthest from comfortable to walk for extended amounts of time in.

“You don’t get a town quite like this in Europe. Or _anywhere_ , really. This is the only one-“.

Katya pauses only to loop her fingers with Trixie’s; finally.

“-What made you never leave?”.

It’s a question that Trixie wasn’t expecting, and one she’s not entirely certain that she has the answer prepared for. Numerous plausible answers course through her mind, though one is prominent amongst the others - the truth.

“A good job, the place-“. Trixie sniffs. “- _It’s the only place like it”._

*****

They find themselves in a new burger joint that’s just opened on the other side of town.

Trixie nabs the booth that’s the furthest away from the door as soon as she enters, claims that the evening chill is too much for the amount of skin she has exposed. She’s shivering slightly, and huddles herself into the tweed like fabric of the booth seats.

It’s welcoming to her body, if a little itchy, and when Katya joins her, having ordered two veggie burgers and a side of fries, she follows suit. They’re buried in the corner of the establishment, hidden from the prying eyes of young teenagers that Trixie vaguely recognises from around the town, and a thirty- _something_ year old man that’s sat down only for a glass of water.

Their legs are intertwined under the table by the time they finish their food, and Katya finds herself leaning subconsciously closer to Trixie across the table. The wood digs into her chest, and Trixie laughs at her, but Trixie’s doing the same. With elbows resting on the table, Katya places the both of her hands atop of Trixie’s and squeezes once, twice, three times before grinning wildly.

“You haven’t changed, y’know”. Katya points out, because Trixie hasn’t changed, not really. She looks older, more ocular, but Katya knows that she does too. It’s been five years, but Trixie’s hair and eyes remain the same.

It’s been five years, but Trixie’s ways remain the same as Katya recalls them.

She remains _Trixie_.

“Neither have you-“. Trixie hums. “-I mean, apart from the hair, obviously”.

“You like it?”.

Trixie _does_. It’s a thought that she’d had earlier in the day; how much it suited Katya. _70’s San Francisco lesbian_. Trixie still thinks her observation is pretty accurate, with Katya in her bootcut jeans and halter top that’s become stained with countless patches of ketchup and mustard throughout the course of their meal.

Katya runs her fingers through it absentmindedly, keeps her eyes trained on Trixie’s. Trixie lifts her hand, begins twirling at her own hair with a nervous giggle and a joyous chortle that make Katya want to combust there and then.

She’s positive that she will, by the time she arrives home with her nervous system in shreds and crumbs. Trixie’s enchanting, captivating every slither of her attention when she clicks her tongue, brushes a tongue across her greasy, sauce stained lips.

“I’ve had a really great time”. Katya exhales, feels Trixie’s manicured nails scraping at the worn out nail varnish on her own. There are little flecks littering the table, akin to salt or pepper and Trixie wants to taste it, then, decides that she wants all of Katya that she can get.

“Me too”.

“We should _uh_ , do it again”.

“Are you free tomorrow?-”. Trixie’s leaping, taking chances that she realises equate to change. It doesn’t terrify her, for once, and she’s left nibbling at her lip with hope fresh on her tongue, conveying to Katya that difference is good.

“-You could come to mine, I’ll make us lunch or something?”.

Trixie’s tentative yet certain, but Katya knows, and nods her head. She gives Trixie an all encompassing look that says everything, whispers _yeah, I’m done wasting time._

“Do you still live up on the hill?”. Katya asks. Trixie shakes her head instantly props her chin up on her free hand that smells of oil and _Pepsi Cola_. Katya loves it, she wants to lick at Trixie’s skin, even in the corner of the grimy burger shop that she thinks might be her new favourite.

Shaking her head no, Trixie slides a couple of dollar bills out of her purse and onto the table.

Katya matches them.

“I bought a little place not far from there though, a couple of months back, down _Powdermill_?”. Trixie offers. It’s futile, because Katya already knows where it is, spent too many years of her teenage life roller skating up and down the narrow road to not know of _Powdermill Lane_.

“Castle Matel?”. Katya snorts. She can picture Trixie’s entire decor if she tries hard enough, the lemon walls and lavender accessories, beige carpets and roses printed across coffee mugs and porcelain plates. It’s an endearing thought that has Katya wanting to see it; Trixie’s own place.

“All pink everything”.

“Typical”.

“I hate you”.

_Trixie really doesn’t._

*****

Katya gives Trixie a ride home in her new truck that she’d left parked in one of the nearby restaurants parking lots, allows Trixie to rest her sore feet on the cool dashboard. Trixie’s beyond grateful, and when Katya drives away after a polite kiss to the cheek and a _see you tomorrow, Trix_ , Trixie can’t help herself from wondering -

_How big are the back seats._


	4. 1997 (part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Great pasta”. 
> 
> “I know”.
> 
> “You can really cook”. 
> 
> “I knew that”. 
> 
> Trixie’s curling her lips smugly, running her nails across a particular vein that bulges in the crease of Katya’s wrist, a deep denim blue. It tickles, and Katya’s pulling her arm away, crossing it protectively over her chest as she giggles airily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so i know i said this would be up a lot sooner than it is but i had a crisis™ and decided to rewrite near enough half of this,,
> 
> anyway, penultimate part!! 
> 
> queue way too much fluff and tons of clichés that are - cute? possibly irritating ??
> 
> either way, i just wanted to say thank you again for all of the support you guys give me on this!! it means so so much and i don’t think i can express how grateful i am !! 
> 
> with that said, i hope you enjoy!! (expect the next part some time just after new years) ♡

When Katya knocks on Trixie’s door the following day, her heart is swollen in her throat.

She parks her new truck, glossy and burgundy, in the grey cobblestone driveway next to Trixie’s car - a ‘ _95 Mini Cooper_ that’s startlingly purple - and sits behind the wheel until her hands have stopped shaking, the pace of her breathing calming.

Her watch reads five fifty, which means she’s ten minutes shy of being on time for six o’clock; she’d agreed on six with Trixie over numerous messages, after deciding five was too early and seven would be too late.

Katya debates flicking back through the messages that sit in her phone which she has stored in the compartment of her dashboard -

**_Trixie_ : What time would be best for u? x**

**_Katya_ : I’m working until 4:30, I could get there for 5 if I rush xx**

**_Trixie_ : Don’t rush urself, how about 6? I don’t wanna wait until 7 to eat srry x**

**_Katya_ : 6 is good. See u then? xx**

**_Trixie_ : I’ll be waiting xx**

\- But then Trixie’s there, peaking her head through the small gap in the curtains of her living room window, spotting Katya who’s still sat, stationary in her truck. Trixie chuckles to herself, scrunches up her nose at Katya who’s wiping her sweaty palms on her equally as clammy thighs, until Trixie waves shyly.

Katya watches Trixie disappear back behind said curtain, thinks that Trixie’s assumed that Katya will hop out of the truck now that she knows Trixie’s seen her, and she does. She leaves her phone in the compartment of the dashboard, neglects to stuff it in to one of the many pockets of her oversized denim jacket, and jumps out of the truck with a jitter in her knee.

She locks the door behind her with the twist of her key that’s already being held together with snippets of duct tape, and strolls up to Trixie’s front door - dark, wooden and glossy - where she knocks three times consecutively. Trixie answers rapidly, and Katya’s almost certain that she had been standing behind the door, waiting for Katya to act.

The thought makes her smile to herself, the dimples in her cheeks deepening as Trixie peers around the corner of the door, grins widely at Katya. Her hair is in its natural state, Katya establishes quickly, soft waves that fall to her shoulders and frame her face that’s glowing, illuminated by the lamp shade hanging from the ceiling of Trixie’s hallway.

It’s not dark outside yet, but it will be soon, so it makes sense for Trixie to have switched it on, Katya decides. It’s a choice that pays off, because Trixie’s halter dress that’s clinging to her body, adorned with gold sequins, reflects prismatic circles in whatever direction she moves.

Katya likes it. She can see the shimmers bouncing off of the skin of her own bare thighs, her cut off shorts and hooded sweatshirt. She steps into Trixie’s space slightly, feels drawn in as Trixie opens the door further; enough so that Katya’s able to squeeze past, into the narrow yet spacious area.

Trixie’s hand grazes Katya’s thigh as she brushes past, and Katya doesn’t try to avoid the shiver that wracks her body. Her hand is cold, freezing almost, and it makes Katya want to grab ahold of it, press it between both of her palms that are roasting, until Trixie’s warm again.

She blinks up towards Trixie, watches the muscles in her back and her shoulder blades twitch and twist with the effort of locking the door behind her. It takes her a matter of seconds, and then she’s spinning back around, facing Katya with a grimace and a frown. Katya smiles tentatively, encourages Trixie to take a single step forward before she halts, stops in the middle of the hallway halfway between Katya and be aforementioned door.

“What?”.

“You’re cold”. Katya worries her bottom lip between her teeth, furrows her eyebrows so that the crease in her forehead becomes more prominent. She takes a step towards Trixie, and when Trixie doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, she takes another.

Trixie shrugs her shoulders, wrings her hands together. She’s shuffling her sock clad feet on the tiled floor beneath her that’s all black and terracotta, lined with white grout that’s beginning to darken with age. Katya can already feel her sandals that are lacking any grip slipping along them, and is cautious as she takes yet another step forward.

She’s inches away from Trixie, close enough so that she’s able to see the pores on Trixie’s nose, the faint blonde hairs upon her upper lip, and how the remnants of whatever mascara she had been wearing gather under her lower lash line.

Katya thinks she looks beautifully disheveled, with her smart summer cocktail dress and dusty socks, her naturally wavy hair and day-old makeup. She wants to tell Trixie as much there and then, but doesn’t, places her hands on Trixie’s shoulders in lieu of addressing the thoughts busting the hurdles in her mind.

She cocks an eyebrow, watches Trixie’s smile grow as she digs her thumbs into the pressure points of her collarbones. Trixie snorts, giggles, until Katya’s wrapping her in a warm embrace that begins defrosting her algid skin the moment Katya’s breath hits her neck.

“Why do you feel like a fucking living ice cube?”. Katya exhales, feels Trixie’s chest vibrating with laughter against her own. She can feel the goosebumps that have formed on Trixie’s upper arms, too, glides her fingers over them as she pulls away, retracts her grip from around Trixie’s shoulders.

It causes Trixie to shiver further, allows Katya to notice that the air surrounding her, hitting her legs and poking at her nose is brumal; borderline numbing. Katya wants to wrap herself in all of the blankets that she’s able to find immediately, drape them over her frame if only to warm her bones a degree or two.

“Do I not even get a _hello_? Just a lovely human ice cube comment?”. Trixie banters, begins leading Katya down the long hallway and into the kitchen, where Katya spots the dining table.

It’s small, wooden, littered with red tea lights that ignite the room with the scent of roses, and possibly sandalwood. Katya likes the aroma, and can smell it even over the two plates of food that Trixie already has presented, cutlery set to the right of each dish.

Katya admires the sight in front of her, before Trixie’s gesturing for Katya to pull out her chair, sit at the table. She does so, and watches Trixie retrieve a jug of juice from her powder blue refrigerator. It matches the design of the house well, so far as Katya’s able to tell from having only viewed the hallway and the kitchen. Everything is pastel, soft and dainty with its country quirks that Katya deems to be quintessentially Trixie.

It’s a visual that she enjoys, and when Trixie takes her seat opposite her, the chair creaking under her weight, Katya crosses her legs below the table.

“Sorry-“. Katya addresses.

“-But you are _really_ cold”. She offers timidly, attempts pulling her hooded sweatshirt closer to her body. It’s futile, because Trixie’s laughing at her, then, albeit apologetically, motioning towards the stove with a halfhearted tilt of her head.

“Ok-“. Trixie scoffs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Katya focuses on the earrings that adorn them, silver instead of gold like Katya had remembered. She thinks she likes them better; they scream Trixie with the way that they dangle from her lobes, brush against the section of her neck slightly underneath them.

“-Don’t laugh at me - _but_ \- I got too warm cooking, so I switched the air con on and forgot about it until I felt like I was sitting in an igloo”. Trixie finishes, both elbows resting on the solid wood of the table. She rests her chin on her knuckles, gauges Katya’s reaction; a hearty laugh that causes the creases at the corners of her eyes to feather dramatically.

“I’m happy to find out you’re still as clever”. Teases Katya.

She already has her fork locked into her right hand, ready to load it was the pasta that Trixie’s made. Admittedly, it looks good, with sprinklings of basil and Parmesan that have Katya’s tongue tingling, her teeth nibbling at the insides of her cheeks.

Trixie’s arching her eyebrows towards Katya, crossing her arms petulantly across her chest. Katya eyes her breasts as she does so - full and round and braless under her halter dress - where they’re pushed together alluringly. She fixes herself when Trixie clears her throat, draws Katya’s attention back to her and her plate, where she stabs at a shell of pasta with her fork.

It’s good, though it’s laughable, because Trixie still hasn’t picked up her fork, is instead grinning at Katya almost manically. Katya finds it endearing, despite the way that Trixie’s pupils are blown noticeably, beyond their usual depth and darkness.

“Actually-“. Trixie hums.

“-It takes a ‘lotta god damn brain to teach kindergarten”.

Katya nods her head understandingly, because it’s not a statement that she’s about to question. She knows Trixie works hard, and always has done, with her drive and ambition that have landed her her dream job that she just knows eighteen year old Trixie would’ve been ecstatic about; _elated_.

“I don’t doubt that at all”. Katya confirms earnestly. Trixie looks satisfied with the response she receives, though she convinces herself that she wasn’t looking for one at all, and smiles gratefully back at Katya.

Trixie follows suit with digging into her own plate of food, groans affirmatively at her own concoction of flavours when she chews her first bite. It has Katya giggling, smudging a drop of tomato sauce further up her own cheek that Trixie’s not going to point out; not quite yet.

Nudging at Trixie’s sock covered ankle with her own sandal under the table, Katya succeeds in drawing Trixie’s eyes up to meet her own. They’re filled with glee, an aura of something that Katya almost envies when she places down her fork, lifts her pre-poured glass of juice to her lips.

Trixie had remembered that she didn’t drink.

“Oh-“. Katya sniffs. “- _Hi_ , by the way”. She gulps down the mixed fruit juice zealously, assumes it’s probably a fusion of all things tropical. It’s good, and Trixie’s gawking back at her with her eyes gleaming, her lips upturned.

She looks ethereal, to Katya, with the tea lights reflecting off of the mirror of her tanned skin, her fingers that are holding her fork deftly. Katya wants to reach out across the table, intertwine her hand with Trixie’s like she had the previous night, feel wether or not the girls palm has warmed in the heat that’s beginning to flow back through the house.

It’s cosy, homely, and Trixie’s tilting her head to one side, nodding towards Katya. She’s chewing through a piece of pasta, and Katya watches the soft movements of her cheeks as she does so, until she swallows, licks at her greasy lips.

“Hi to you too”. Trixie muses, picks up her own glass from the coaster on the table. She clinks it against Katya’s, that the other girl is still holding cautiously in front of her, notices how Katya’s eyes flicker from her wrist and up the length of her arm.

Katya beams, sets down her glass and her fork simultaneously. The metal scratches against the china of the plate, and Katya can sense Trixie’s eyes rolling in her direction, despite her gaze being fixated on her surroundings.

They’re almost exactly like Katya imagined they would be; overwhelmingly Trixie. She has a collection of small, circular embroideries tacked to one wall opposite her stove, all delicate flowers and quotes that don’t surprise Katya, really. They range from inspirational tag lines to baking puns that have Katya arching an eyebrow, switching her focus to the tiled floor - black and terracotta to match the hallway - and the beechwood kitchen cabinets.

The worktops are wooden too, and it shouldn’t fit, with the amount of wood that seems to decorate Trixie’s house, but it does, with the array of cacti and succulents that Trixie has potted all along the length of the windowsill. Some are blue and others are a pale pink, painted with lemon and white swirls that blend into the stems of drooping violet flowers; Katya doesn’t know the name of them.

Either way, they’re pretty, and Katya wants to pluck one out of its pot, tuck it behind Trixie’s ear, watch the blush grow in branches up Trixie’s cheeks. She thinks she might, at some point, if she gets to spend more time pottering around Trixie’s kitchen, weaving through Trixie’s life.

It’s a settling thought, and as Katya drains her glass of juice for all that it has, Trixie’s shuffling her chair closer to the table, closer to the tea lights and in turn closer to Katya. Katya’s able to see the slight shine to Trixie’s button nose from the angle that she’s sitting, and the glow that’s a halo upon her forehead.

Part of her wishes Trixie would blow out the tea lights already, allow the smoke to breeze through her eyelashes and waft through her untamed hair. Katya’s tempted to do it for her, but then Trixie’s finishing up her own plate of food, setting both her knife and fork down onto her plate that’s crafted differently than the one Katya had been eating off of.

Clearing her throat, Katya places one hand on the table, her palm facing upwards. It’s an open invitation that she hopes Trixie will take, and slot her fingers between Katya’s as soon as she notices Katya’s hand jittering, twitching impatiently.

Trixie doesn’t, instead merely presses the tip of her index finger to the centre of Katya’s palm - in between the lines and creases of her skin - and presses lightly. Katya can feel the pressure all the way up the length of her arm that she can feel flexing involuntarily under her sweatshirt, brushing against the inside of the fleecy fabric.

She can feel it in her toes, too, and in every section of her body that she’s managed to keep track of with her mind that’s floating away to another realm. She can see Trixie, somewhere in the distance, peddling her pink pushbike through the tunnels and corridors of her consciousness, a singular flower hidden behind her ear.

Katya enjoys the sight, but thinks that she prefers the one that’s right in front of her. Trixie’s there, and she’s real, head tilted to the side and finger tracing its way up the veins in Katya’s wrist, her forearm eventually.

They’re soft touches, and Katya welcomes them with verve and joy.

“Great pasta”.

“I _know_ ”.

“You can really cook”.

“I knew that”.

Trixie’s curling her lips smugly, running her nails across a particular vein that bulges in the crease of Katya’s wrist, a deep denim blue. It tickles, and Katya’s pulling her arm away, crossing it protectively over her chest as she giggles airily.

She misses Trixie’s skin on hers as soon as she does so, and wants to reconnect their touches, Trixie’s fingertip with her palm and wrist. She wants to, but she can’t, because Trixie’s already shifting, folding her arms atop the table in the space she’s created from sliding her plate to the side.

Eyeing Katya, Trixie drops her voice.

Everything above a whisper feels too loud for the moment, too raucous for the atmosphere that’s constructed from ambient tea lights and tentative smiles, minute touches and intimately spoken small talk.

Katya wishes that it didn’t, but when Trixie begins exhaling words, changing the tone of the conversation to something with a little more depth, Katya guesses that she doesn’t mind. Trixie’s leaning in closer, bending her back into the table as if she has a secret to tell, one that she wants to keep from the ears of her kitchen walls and houseplants.

“Will you tell me about Europe?”.

Slouching in her seat, the dark wood digging into her spine, Katya nods her head slowly, absorbs Trixie’s words. They’re inquisitive, curious, because Trixie’s nothing short of genuinely interested in Katya, and what Katya had been doing across several countries - for five or so years.

Katya wants to tell her.

She wants to take her time telling Trixie about everything that she saw; how the cathedrals in Bruges differed so greatly from the ones in Brussels, and the sights she saw whilst interailing Italy - Rome, Venice, _Milan_.

She wants to hush Trixie to sleep with tales of Amsterdam, glorious highs and lows that had sent her to the UK, where most things were slightly worse for wear. The gloomy beaches made her long for the white sands and crisper waters of home, as did the cafés and restaurants that didn’t succeed in holding a candle to the ones that Katya was accustomed to.

They’re anecdotes that she thinks Trixie would like, and would find herself laughing delightedly at them, her face hidden in the crook of Katya’s neck, chest vibrating and shaking.

Katya clears her throat, sits back up straight.

“What do you ‘wanna know? We might be here all night if I get into details”. Katya snickers, picks up the jug of fruit juice that sits in the middle of the table and fills her glass until it’s just over half full. She swirls it around, watches the melting ice cubes briefly before flickering her gaze back up towards Trixie through her heavy eyelashes.

Trixie follows suit, refills her own glass.

“I could think of worse things, couldn’t ‘ya?”.

“What, than listening to me rambling about fucking beaches and old buildings? _No_ , I don’t think I could”. Katya responds jokingly. She doesn’t want to spend a second listening to her own voice when she could be listening to Trixie’s.

A voice woven by silk worms, dripping in syrupy honey that’s sticky, warm as it pours into Katya’s ears. She savours each drop, ever morsel that she can get out of Trixie’s mouth, her tongue wrapping around each word with a lack of diction that Katya knows comes from Trixie’s Midwest upbringing.

She likes it, and Trixie’s shrugging her shoulders, standing up and pulling Katya with her, leading them both through to the low ceilinged living room. They leave their empty plates and glasses behind on the table, and Katya’s amazed by the amount of fairy lights that Trixie’s managed to hang around said room, wrapped around curtain rails and draped across picture frames.

They’re the only source of light to be found, with the curtains drawn closed; Trixie had made sure they were before Katya had arrived. The overly long fabric pools in puddles where it hits the floor, and reminds Katya of photographs that she’s seen of slithering lava, emanating from active volcanoes.

It suits the room, to not have curtains that fit the window properly, Katya thinks, as does the pink crocheted rug that sits in the centre of the room.

Katya pads her feet across it on the way to the couch, crinkles her toes in the strands of scratchy yarn until she’s back standing on the wooden floor, joining Trixie who’s already sat comfortably on the couch.

Her legs are folded up underneath her body, and Katya copies her movements, sits so that she’s facing Trixie directly. She rests her elbow on the back of the couch, and rests her palm against her temple. She can feel the muscle beneath her hand move as she grins at Trixie, and toys with where to place her free hand; on her knee or Trixie’s.

Trixie solves her dilemma for her, takes ahold of Katya’s hand with an eagerness that makes Katya’s eyes boggle noticeably. She notes that Trixie’s hands have warmed since she’d first arrived, when they were chilly and speckled with splatters of blue and purple and pink. They’re hot, snug against the joints of Katya’s knuckles and the calloused pads of her fingertips.

Squeezing Trixie’s hand in return, Katya allows Trixie to shuffle forward, lean into her side that’s now resting against the back of the couch, too.

“I know what you can tell me about-”. Trixie husks, her knees pressing into Katya’s outer thigh. She slouches her shoulders, so that she’s eye level with Katya, and allows her body to fall further into the back of the couch.

Katya arches an eyebrow, hums peculiarly before the hand that’s resting on the back of the couch is stretching out towards Trixie, looping a strand of her hair loosely around her index finger.

“-Tell me about the girls”. Trixie finishes.

“The _girls_?”.

“Mhm, the _girls_ , Katya. Speaking those foreign languages that you love. Did you like them?-”. Teases Trixie, her hot breath hitting Katya’s cheek. She smells vaguely of fruit juice and a lot like Trixie; sweet with a bitter end that leaves Katya salivating, tugging with a little more force at the singular lock of Trixie’s hair.

“-Did you like _fucking_ them? _Hm_?”.

Katya shivers.

She can feel the goosebumps travelling up and down her spine, stabbing between her vertebrae and into her nerves, causing her to quiver further. Reflexively, she tugs harder at Trixie’s hair, weaves her hand further into the mass of golden strands until she’s able to dig her short, clipped fingernails into Trixie’s scalp.

“Yeah-“. Katya asserts, certainty prevalent in her tone. She watches Trixie’s throat bob as she gulps, takes in a puff of air that she’s in dire need of. Her chest rises only to fall again, sink back into itself as Katya drops the hand that isn’t threaded in her hair to her waist, dips her fingers in there, too.

“-I did. But d’ya ‘wanna know something?”. Katya offers, coercing Trixie closer to where she’s sat, until Trixie’s braless breasts are pressing against Katya’s bicep, through the combined thickness of Trixie’s halter dress and Katya’s sweatshirt.

Trixie keens, nods her head yes.

“I liked fucking _you_ more”.   
  
Trixie whimpers openly at Katya’s confession, can feel herself fighting the urge to squeeze her thighs together, ease the throbbing pressure that’s heightening in her core. She drops her forehead to Katya’s temple, becomes aware of Katya’s hand that’s sliding from her hip and to the small of her back, scrunching up the fabric of her dress that’s noticeably dampened with sweat.

“You did?”.

“God yes, I did”.

“I _really_ ‘wanna kiss you”. Trixie breathes wantonly, ghosting her tongue across her bottom lip that’s jutted our slightly in lust. Katya can hear every barely audible noise that Trixie makes - the spit that’s rolling in her mouth, the tiny whistles that echo from her nostrils as she breathes deeply - and they’re driving Katya insane.

It’s wild, because Katya understands. She wants Trixie’s lips on hers, needs Trixie’s hands on her naked skin, and to feel Trixie’s manicured nails scraping up and down the lengths of her thighs, her shoulders. She needs it all, and requires Trixie to know that, too, so she’s nodding her head rapidly once again, fluttering her eyes close.

“Do it-“. Katya whines in response, untangles her hand from Trixie’s hair in order to cup Trixie’s cheek.

“-Please fucking do it”.

_Trixie does._

*****

Trixie’s body has always been something that Katya has marvelled at.

It’s drastically different from her own, all feminine curves and womanly stretch marks compared to her own jagged semi-toned muscles and harsh edges. The width of her hips - _those_ hips that Katya swears have grown since she’s seen them last - and the curves of her breasts, her pillowy thighs.

She’s soft, supple, and Katya’s in awe as she stares down at Trixie in the lavender coloured bed sheets, the last of the summer night light leaking through the gap in the curtains and casting shadowy streaks across the expanse of her body.

Katya wants to lick at the trails that they leave, and decides that she’ll do it if Trixie will allow her, after she’s caressed her breasts, pressed open mouthed kisses to Trixie’s nipples that are sparkling, protruding from her chest.

“You got your nipples pierced”. Katya observes, bites down on the handle that the jewellery provides for her teeth. The action makes Trixie’s body jolt with pleasure, before Katya’s pulling away, straddling Trixie’s hips and bracketing Trixie’s head with her forearms.

Trixie nods her head, acknowledges Katya’s comment as she regains her breath that she’s lost to Katya’s nips and pecks. She runs her hands from Katya’s shoulders and down to her ass, where she squeezes once, she thinks, so that Katya grinds down onto the swell of her stomach.

“ _Fuck_ \- I did, yeah. Spur of the moment thing”. Trixie responds. She wants Katya’s panties off, now, wants to drag her fingers through Katya’s heat and make her moan Trixie’s name so loudly that it’s ringing in her ears, echoing throughout the room as if it was pouring from the speakers of the _CD_ player in the corner of the room.

Trixie’s needy, and with Katya dismounting Trixie’s thighs in order to lay on the bed next to her, Trixie gladly switches positions. She’s straddling Katya, then, fingers pushing Katya’s sweaty hair off of her forehead and back into the pillows surrounding her.

Her lips skim across Katya’s jaw and then down to her neck, bump against her prominent collar bones and then trail down to her breasts. She marks them as she wishes, in painless bites and gentle measures of suction so that Katya’s sternum blooms with rose gardens and rhododendrons that have Trixie dripping.

Katya’s writhing against the mattress, her hands tugging at Trixie’s hair that looks a mess, dishevelled and flipped to one side. It’s frizzing with the humidity, curling more at the roots than at the ends, but Katya’s still infatuated with how thick and silky it is.

She thinks she could bury her head in it for as long as she likes, inhale the scent of Trixie’s shampoo that’s somewhere between being a festive spice and a citrus fruit, fall asleep with the strands tickling her nostrils.

“ _Trixie_ ”

Trixie looks up as Katya moans her name exuberantly, drags her nails across Katya’s taught stomach as she places lingering kisses to her thighs. They’re quivering with anticipation, and when Trixie rests her cheek against the soft flesh, her face lighting up at Katya’s eyes that are scrunched up, her nose that’s in a similar state, Trixie feels her heart clench in delight.

“ _Trixie_ ”.

Katya repeats, forces her eyes to stay open in order to maintain eye contact with Trixie, who’s still busying herself by kissing down to Katya’s knees and back, going over the motion continuously.

It has Katya wishing, longing, _pleading_ for time to speed up. She feels like Trixie’s been in the same position for hours, teasing her, causing her arousal to grow but never allowing it to be quelled. Katya feels like she might burst, or could possibly pass out if Trixie doesn’t touch her where she needs her to most soon, or cover her with her hot, wet mouth.

She needs it, but Trixie’s _there_ , grinning up at her stupidly with her crooked teeth, the front two with a slight gap, and giggling as she tugs a strand of Katya’s neatly trimmed pubic hair with her teeth.

Katya wants to die, possibly, because Trixie’s almost touching her directly, where she’s throbbing, pulsating, and all that she’s able to think is _Trixie Trixie Trixie_ ; how much she’s missed this, and her.

“ _Trixie_ -“. It’s the third time that Katya’s whined her name in a matter of minutes.

“- _Trixie_ , Trix, stop for a second”.

Trixie hears her clearly, and registers Katya’s words with ease. She’s jumping backwards instantaneously, placing her hands protectively on Katya’s knees that are bent, her feet flat on the bed. Katya looks back at her with eyes that are both dazed and confused, an expression that’s become unreadable to Trixie.

“What?-“. Pants Trixie, furrowing her eyebrows. Katya’s brushing her own hair away from her face with nimble fingers that are shaking, getting caught in knots and tangles that sting at the scalp when she loosens them. She’s catching her breath that she’s already lost, opening her lungs to the stuffy air in the room.

“-Did I do something?, are you ok?”. Trixie continues, until Katya’s shaking her head quickly, both her back and neck arching as she laughs enigmatically.

Her chest is beading with droplets of sweat, and she’s pulling Trixie up so that she’s eye level with her again by her hands that are still gripping her knees. Trixie can see where her skin is flushed in patches, prickled with heat that lets Trixie know that Katya’s still into it - into her - and it makes her noticeably less nervous about Katya’s cloud of assumed doubt.

“No-“. Katya asserts. “-God, _no_ , you idiot. Come here”.

Trixie sighs, relieved, drapes her body across Katya’s as Katya strokes up and down her spine, prods at the small of her back. She’s kissing Trixie’s lips eagerly yet tenderly, embracing Trixie with a strength that she doesn’t know how she still possess, with Trixie’s wetness stamping against her hip bone.

She hums into the kiss, into Trixie’s mouth that’s back to tasting just like _Trixie_ \- no fruit juice present - and Trixie’s grateful for the time that Katya takes, reassuring her once again. It’s both soothing and indescribably hot, to have Katya beneath her again; Katya who’s still whimpering occasionally, attempting to diminish the pressure rising in her gut by grinding against Trixie’s plush thigh.

Katya pulls back, then, moves her hands up to Trixie’s face where she strokes her thumbs over Trixie’s cheekbones that are damp with sweat. Katya wants to lick across the salty, freckled skin, but Trixie’s eyes are fluttering closed contentedly, and she’s burying her head in the crook of Katya’s neck.

“I just wanted to say-“. Katya pauses. “-I really missed this, missed _you_ , Trix”.

Her voice cracks as she concludes her sentence, and she can feel Trixie’s smile grow against the skin of her shoulder. She’s placing kisses to the area, too, nodding her head so that her hair almost covers Katya’s face, irritates her ticklish lips.

She pulls away, stares Katya down with an impish softness to her gaze that makes Katya’s eyes threaten to spill over with unshed tears. She’s emotional, wanting Trixie to fuck her but wanting simply to hold Trixie close and to whisper into her ear; to _love_ her again.

Katya finds herself wanting to roll her eyes at the cliché thoughts that she can’t see to banish from her mind, the ones that have been circulating since she’d pulled into Trixie’s driveway, sat behind the steering wheel of her pickup truck with a nervousness that hurt.

It still hurts, she guesses, as does the niggling fact that Trixie’s been here all of this time - five years - getting a job, and buying her house that she’s managed to transform from an empty shell into a home that Katya just knows that she’s exponentially proud of.

She should be, Katya decides, because the Trixie that’s straddling her is the person that eighteen year old Trixie would’ve been in awe of; successful and established _enough_ to have Katya quaking in her boots, gawking open mouthed whenever Trixie speaks -

And Katya thinks she could love her just as easily now as she did then.

“I’ve missed you too, Kat, but _shit_ \- please let me carry on”. Trixie laughs, groans mid way through, and digs her thumbs into Katya’s collarbones before descending once again to begin sucking wetly at her nipples.

Katya lets her, and minutes later she’s coming with Trixie’s mouth on her and Trixie’s name on her lips, her nails digging into the cotton sheets that have been pulled away from the corners of the mattress.

She comes down rapidly, crashes, feels the waves of her orgasm ebbing away because she knows that Trixie still needs to be touched; _needs_ to come.

She’s squeezing her thighs together, and Katya can see her dripping down the lengths of them, watches it pool where she’s sitting cross legged on the bed next to Katya. She licks her lips, Katya’s essence coating her cheeks and her chin, and allows her own hand to drift downwards.

Trixie knows that she’s wetter than she’s been in months, and Katya can tell that she is too, from the way that her cheeks are flaming red and her pupils are dilated, reflecting the glow of the room. She knows it won’t take much to make her come, to have her sending echoes of Katya’s name throughout the entirety of the house, but she wants to draw it out - even if it’s an unrealistic thought.

“If you don’t hurry up and fuck me-“. She directs towards Katya. “-I’m gonna do it myself”.

Trixie slumps back into the pillows, waits for Katya to acknowledge her fingers that are now alternating between sliding across her clit, and pumping messily inside of her. Her movements are jagged, hasty, but Katya doesn’t care; the sight is enough to get her salivating again, sends her crawling up toward Trixie.

“Alright. Let me watch you touch yourself, baby”.

 _Trixie does as she’s told_.

*****

Katya wakes up before Trixie the next morning, and navigates Trixie’s kitchen with ease.

She makes them both coffee from the one pot of instant that sits at the back of the counter top, and locates a pack of chocolate biscuits in one of the cupboards that are already half eaten. They look edible enough, she thinks, and carries them back up to Trixie’s room, tucks them under her arm so that she’s able to carry both of the coffees in the same trip.

It’s a sight that makes Trixie chuckle when Katya arrives back to the bedroom, eyes Trixie who’s sitting up against the headboard, Katya’s sweatshirt from the previous night hugging her chest snuggly.

“Breakfast”. Katya announces, sets the pack of biscuits down on the bed between them and hands Trixie her coffee. She’s careful not to spill any - knows that it’s scalding - and allows Trixie to slump exhaustedly against her shoulder once she’s settled again.

Eyeing the beverage, Trixie laughs, because of _course_.

It’s black coffee, and is far from Trixie’s usual choice of overly sweet green tea that makes her gums tingle and her attitude perk, but it smells _good_. She tears open the already half eaten pack of biscuits further, and begins dunking them in the drink eagerly.

 _Trixie doesn’t like black coffee_ , she tells herself, _but she guesses she’ll drink it if Katya makes it._


	5. 1999

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I love you too, for the record”. Trixie’s earring tickles at Katya’s finger, light sparkling metal, and then she’s dropping her hand again, releasing Trixie from her hold as she motions towards the adjacent isle that’s stacked with chips and miscellaneous snacks. 
> 
> Licking her lips, Trixie simply grins.
> 
> “I’m hungry, can we get more?”. 
> 
> Katya nods affirmatively. 
> 
> “Pick whatever you want, honey”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final chapter!! 
> 
> this has been a wild ride of fluff and feelings and too many clichés to count, but i’m so thankful for all of you that have stuck around for this part!! 
> 
> this is personally one of my favourite things i’ve ever written - i just feel like everything is closed off and summarised nicely (but i guess you guys will be the real judge of that lmao)
> 
> with that said, i just want to say thank you again, and i hope you enjoy this!! ♡
> 
> (side note::: death is mentioned quite heavily in the first section of this; just a little warning)
> 
> (side note part 2::: sorry for any careless spelling mistakes, it’s 2am here and i need s l e e p)

_When Katya’s mom dies_ , it’s bleak February outside.

The cold weather has given Katya a cough that she hasn’t managed to shift for weeks, has left her lips chapped and caused the tip of her nose to maintain a constant shade of frost bitten.

She wraps herself up in layers, T-shirts, sweatshirts and jackets that do little to quell the shivering of her skin, the goosebumps that form at the base of her spine and the tops of her biceps. She wishes they were more effective, needs them to protect her from the frigid glare of the hospital lights that hang from the ceilings by chains down each long, bare corridor, and from the icy sheet of her moms skin that becomes more stoic every time she visits.

They don’t, however, and Katya’s left numb until she steps foot into Trixie’s house, where she sweats, boils rapidly whilst she waits for Trixie to come home from work, to peel away her clothing to cool her down; then press her fingers to her thighs to heat her up again.

 _When Katya’s mom dies_ , trixie witnesses a little part of katya diminish too.

They’re prepared for it to happen, when the hospital call Katya, tell her to prepare for the worst because _pneumonia in those over fifty can be fatal_. Katya doesn’t want to believe it, can’t believe it, because her mom is young, to her, should still have so many years left to spend and live vivaciously.

She longs for her mom to be with her in ten years, when herself and Trixie possibly adopt a child of their own. She wants her to be there ten years from then, too, to watch the child in their Christmas play, cheering from the front row because her mom would be that kind of grandma, Katya’s already certain.

Katya dreams about it, finds herself praying to heavens that she’s not entirely sure she believes in, but they call again, then, in the early hours of the morning, cause Katya’s cellphone to blast an ungodly rhythm of synthesisers.

Katya awakens in a cold sweat; and she _knows_.

 _When Katya’s mom dies_ , Trixie takes two weeks vacation from work.

She can’t face her adored group of chirpy kindergarteners, not when Katya - _her_ Katya - is relying on her to be her sole source of guidance through the turbulence, the chaos that Katya doesn’t believe she can escape from. Mourning. Funeral plans. Estranged family members.

Trixie’s positive that she can, despite the nights that Katya spends crying on her shoulders, wrapped up in pastel coloured bedding and leaving behind any traces of mascara on them from that day, muttering that it’s nothing nothing nothing.

She shatters, even as she swears that she’s fine. Trixie knows that she isn’t - she knows Katya better than she knows herself by this point - from the way that Katya begins contacting family members that she hasn’t spoken to in years, sends out postcards to cousins that she barely knows up north.

It’s a reinvigorated effort that Trixie knows Katya wishes she’d invested more of in her mom, and her dad, because when Katya inherits the family house - the one with the obnoxious red door - she doesn’t know what to with it.

It’s a change that wracks the both of them, introduces a new wave in their emotional dynamic that’s shifted noticeably over the course of less than a week, or two. Things that weren’t apparent to Katya before are obvious now, like the way Trixie’s able to pour out suggestions akin to a flowing tap, or how she provides a positive counter thought to Katya’s every negative one.

Katya had barely batted an eyelid at what she deemed to be Trixie’s usual ways, before, but now she takes them in with care, nurtures them closely so that she’s able to cherish them; protect them, and _Trixie_.

She does so until Trixie brings up a cautious idea, stutters it out over two cups of black coffee that Trixie’s grown to love. It keeps her awake on days where she wants nothing more than to remain curled up in bed, shielded from the town that’s beginning to feel as if it wants to knock her down, kick her out of her home.

_Renovate the house. Live in it._

Katya mulls it over for days, but is almost certain of her decision following one kiss from Trixie, a squeeze to her hand.

 _Yes_.

They’ve lived together for over a year, since Katya had moved into Trixie’s tiny two bedroom, put her own rented apartment back on the market after packing up all of her belongings into boxes in her pickup truck. She’d done so eagerly, had stepped into Trixie’s space with fever, because Trixie had reassured her that it was her space, too, and Katya knew that she meant it.

The thought of a bigger space - _their_ bigger space - leaves Katya in a blissful state of mind that she thinks will be good, for the both of them. She wants to know if Trixie will change the decor of the house at all, whether she’ll keep the aforementioned red door or exchange it for a deeper oak one, if she’ll find herself wanting to spend more money on scatter cushions than anything else.

Katya finds out, when Trixie puts her old place near the hill up for sale.

She keeps the door, though paints it a glossy cobalt blue, replaces the white picket fence in the front yard with a powder blue one in order to compliment it; Katya thinks it’s _absurd_ , and tells Trixie she’s been spending too much time with her kindergarteners, has begun enjoying childlike colours once again.

Trixie laughs, but then she paints the interior walls of the living room a dusty orange with Katya’s help, and Katya’s more than glad that Trixie’s taken it upon herself to bringing the home into ‘ _99_. The colour makes Trixie’s cheeks appear more rosy and her hair more golden, allows Katya to smile wider, because she can’t help but think that it’s all a little weird, really.

She can remember herself and Trixie mocking the neighbourhood years ago, with all of the soccer moms in their sports gilets and overly competitive children. It’s laughable, because it’s changed a lot over the years.

The kids that she remembers must be teenagers, by now, - she wouldn’t be surprised if they had children of their own that will end up in Trixie’s classes in a couple of years time - with the moms and dads that she recalls sending them off to a prestigious college that’s states away.

Most of the houses have even been renovated to some extent, she notices, the roofs having been re-tiled along with driveways that have been dug up only to be replaced with cobblestones. They suit the area, that’s quaint and familial and everything that the town has always been.

She’s met most of her neighbours in passing, consciously, and has even bumped into the couple that live at the end of the street once or twice; Bob and Brian, and their dog that she thinks is some breed of chihuahua.

Katya likes knowing that there are people like her and Trixie surrounding them, overlapping them in folds of Christmas wrapping paper that Katya’s still finding as she unpacks boxes, left over from the holidays - she still doesn’t know why Trixie insists on keeping the scraps.

She likes knowing that the town that’s raised her is no longer as monotonous, also, enjoys that it’s less homogeneous -

\- and that she feels like she’s _home_.

*****

August is _hot_.

It’s ten degrees or so warmer than July was, and even more so than June, which was overcast on the best of days; the filtered clouds clogging up the greying sky that fades to a muted black by eight in the evening, every night religiously.

Trixie’s in her element - she adores the summer, how her skin blooms with freckles - but despises how the heat causes her to sweat, makes her thighs stick to the leather of the seats in Katya’s pick up truck.

The only purpose her discomfort serves is to make Katya laugh, to have her teasing Trixie, slapping at her ass in her tight denim mini skirt when she hops out of the truck at the gas station. She follows Katya, hot on her heels into the barely air conditioned building, allows her bleary, blood shot eyes to focus on the back of Katya’s hair that’s frizzing with the humidity.

Katya simply laughs at how Trixie saunters wordlessly next to her, follows Trixie to the sectioned of the store filled with candy because Trixie’s high.

She’s blissfully stoned from the joint she’d smoked while Katya had been driving through the cliff tops - the windows wide open and allowing the thick air to flutter her eyelashes, smother her cheeks in glowing peach fuzz - and is eyeing the candy with delight.

Her tongue craves for something sweet, something so sugary that her veins will buzz with electricity, cause her eyes to flutter closed in harmony with Katya’s, who’s observing the selection of chocolate bars wearily.

Trixie knows what Katya’s going to choose already; anything with caramel and peanuts, but Trixie plays along, allows Katya to cast her gaze from the jelly beans and over to the malt balls. Trixie knows what she’s going to purchase, too - the bars of white chocolate that are carved with hearts - and contemplates picking up handfuls of them, dumping them on the counter where a young teenage boy is stood behind the cash register.

It’s a thought that’s alluring, but then her eyes are on Katya again, who’s crouching down to the lower shelves, picking up two of her candy bars of choice along with four of Trixie’s. She holds them tightly in one hand, fiddles with rummaging in her shorts pocket for her scrunched up dollar pills with the other.

“I love you a lot”.

The words blurt freely from Trixie’s mouth that’s _dry dry dry_ , and she needs a drink, she knows. Her lips are balmy though they taste of smoke, and she makes a note to retrieve the bottle of peach iced tea that’s sitting in the back of Katya’s truck as soon as she gets back to it, but then Katya’s standing up straight, with a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

Her cheeks are flushing pink, enhanced by the artificial light of the store and the air conditioning that’s slowly cooling her skin as she stands beneath the whirring fan. The words are ones that she’s used to; she’s heard them countless times over the past year or so, though they wrack her to her core every time Trixie breathes them.

They wrap around her brain cells, interweave themselves with her subconscious that screams Trixie, love, Trixie, until she’s left staring blankly up at Trixie, pupils dilated and hands gravitating towards Trixie’s hips.

“I love you too”.

 _Katya does_.

She loves Trixie more than she ever thought she could, with her doe eyes and daintily chubby fingers, her strong calves and sharp sense of humour that can make Katya fizzle with laughter at a drop of a pin. She’s as quick witted as she is protective, and is a grounding match for Katya’s exuberance and unpredictability, her wired anxiety and creativity, too.

They coexist simply, more than anything, and Trixie’s content. Trixie’s in love.

“No, I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever loved anybody more”. Trixie knows that she hasn’t. She’s unable to compare the surge that she feels for Katya to what she’s felt for intermittent girlfriends and passing lovers; those who bare no physical or emotional resemblance to Katya, who’s Trixie’s idea of optimal embodied.

Trixie doesn’t know if Katya’s heard her when the other girl simply nods, wraps her arm loosely around Trixie’s waist. She finds herself blushing, until her cheeks match Katya’s, and she watches out of the corner of her eye as the teenage boy at the cash register turns away, gives them the privacy that they’ve silently asked for.

“I know, Trix-“. Katya giggles. “- _God_ , how high are you?”.

Trixie shrugs nonchalantly, her eyes still blood shot and drooping. Katya nibbles at the inside of her cheek - she wants to kiss Trixie senseless there and then, under the fluorescent lights and barley there air conditioning - before she tucks a loose strand of hair back behind Trixie’s ear.

“I love you too, for the record”. Trixie’s earring tickles at Katya’s finger, light sparkling metal, and then she’s dropping her hand again, releasing Trixie from her hold as she motions towards the adjacent isle that’s stacked with chips and miscellaneous snacks.

Licking her lips, Trixie simply grins.

“I’m hungry, can we get more?”.

Katya nods affirmatively.

_“Pick whatever you want, honey”._

*****

The year _2000_ is due to come around in a couple of months.

Trixie thinks that the prospect is partly insane and partly miraculous; she can’t quite work out how the human race made it past the year _1500_ let alone five hundred years down the line, with its technological advances and peculiar fashion trends.

Magazines have been telling her for weeks that blue eyeshadow will be back in style, not that she can remember when it ever went out of style, even as she hopes it doesn’t. She longs to wear pinks and yellows and whites like she’s always worn, accessorise with sequinned backpacks and floral headbands that she purchases from the one boutique in town.

Katya keeps telling her to ignore said magazines, albeit jokingly, reassures Trixie that _there’ll be no need to worry about looks because the earth will end at the strike of the millennia_ , regardless.

Trixie simply laughs it off.

It’s all wild, she thinks, as she sits cross legged on the carpeted floor of her and Katya’s living room, her back pressed to the couch as her kindergarteners self portraits surround her. She’s busy pressing sticky gold stars to the collection of what must consist of forty or fifty separate drawings, each with their own quirks.

Some make Trixie smile and others make her laugh - she shows those ones to Katya to gauge her reaction - there are some that are solely of the child, and ones that include cats and dogs and _parrots_?; Trixie doesn’t know, they could be peacocks.

Katya laughs at those ones, too, tells Trixie that they’re made by blooming artists as she sits on the couch behind her, twirling Trixie’s fleshly washed and still slightly damp hair between her fingertips.

“Can you believe it’ll be the twenty first century in like, eight weeks?”. Katya voices.

Trixie chuckles openly, leans back into Katya’s touch that helps her ignore the floor that’s beginning to make her legs ache. Katya’s inquisitive thoughts match her own - of _course_ they do, she realises, they’ve been watching a through the years documentary on television - and they leave Trixie shrugging slowly, setting her mostly star-adorned self portraits to the side.

“It’s _crazy_ ”. Trixie agrees tepidly, nodding her head and slouching further, allowing her eyes to slip closed as the pads of Katya’s fingers press into her scalp.

Trixie likes it, because she’s tired of talking.

They’ve spoken a lot today - too much, a part of her feels like - about Katya’s morphing work schedule and Trixie’s expanding kindergarten class in the new year; it’s growing by ten members.

She feels mentally exhausted already, and the television program playing in the background that’s filling her with existential dread doesn’t help, with its constant reminders that the festive season is approaching, along with the New Year and obligatory familial celebrations.

Trixie doesn’t care for it much, despite having a more favourable attitude towards the holidays than she once did; cynical and lacklustre. But discussing every minute detail of how many family members they’ll be able to fit in their home - if it comes to that - has her praying for peaceful quietness.

She knows Katya wants that, also, it’s why she’s simply taken to basking in Trixie’s company, toying with her hair as Trixie sifts through piles and folders of the kids’ work. They’re able to sit wordlessly, communicating through low hums and polite nods when needed; if Katya’s refilling their cups of coffee in the kitchen -

\- but Trixie can feel Katya’s restlessness growing, can feel the girls knees vibrating with thought against her shoulders. It has Trixie sitting up a little straighter than she has been, coaxing Katya’s fingers out of her hair and instead into her hands.

“I remember thinking ‘ _90_ was insane and now-“. Katya inhales, breaking the silence.

“-God, I feel like I’m ageing so quickly”.

Trixie sits up completely at the words, feels her ankle knocking over the stack of drawings as she manoeuvres to sit on the couch next to Katya. She makes light work of taking the knitted blanket that’s thrown over the back of the couch, throwing it across both hers and Katya’s laps and wrapping it around their shoulders until their snug, nestled in warmth.

Katya’s _twenty five._

Trixie is, too, though she knows Katya feels the weight of time heavier than she does, with her worry of outgrowing the town once again. It’s a concern that’s constantly prevalent in her mind, despite it resurfacing on occasions to the extent that she thinks she might choke on it as it becomes bile in her throat, spit in her mouth.

She also knows that Katya’s still not entirely comfortable in the town. She loves it there, and loves Trixie, adores the home that they’ve built together out of the shell of where she grew up, surrounded by family that she still wishes she’d cherished more throughout the years.

It’s everything that she’s ever pictured for herself, but something feels _off_.

Katya knows somewhere in the back of her mind that she needs a break, and she thinks that Trixie could do with one too. She’s constantly overworked, burnt out from her job that’s been draining her more over the previous couple of months than Katya’s ever witnessed.

It’s the weekend, but Katya knows that if it wasn’t then Trixie would certainly already be passed out by now, head tucked into Katya’s neck as she snores away on the couch, her legs tucked up underneath her. It’s barely seven in the evening, but on weekdays when Trixie has to teach her classes at the kindergarten, she awakens before _six_ in the morning in order to shower by _seven_ and arrive at the old school building by _half eight_.

Trixie works tirelessly, trudges home long after Katya does - on days where she teaches art sessions at the local community centre - with glitter matted into her hair, coloured sand in her shoes and washable paints streaked across her cheeks.

She reassured Katya that she’s fine; it’s her dream job, after all, but Katya isn’t stupid, she states, and knows that Trixie’s on the brink of reaching the end of her tether.

Katya believe a break will benefit the both of them.

“Would you ever want to leave this place?”. She blurts, leaves Trixie looking on confused. Trixie has her hand clutching at Katya’s T-shirt, and is wringing the supple fabric between her fingers that are twitching anxiously, subconsciously.

She’s yet to utter a word, instead keeps her eyes trained on Katya’s that are beaming with worried honesty, and an eagerness that Trixie wants to wipe away. She can’t do so, she knows, so she’s left shrugging, folding herself further into Katya’s side that’s warm warm warm.

“I don’t know I-“.

“Not permanently-“. Katya elaborates. “-Just for like, a couple of months”.

Trixie exhales raggedly. The room is getting darker - they’ve neglected to turn on any lights thus far in the evening and the television credits have faded to black - and Trixie wishes that Katya’s eyes weren’t as light as they are; she can see them perfectly even in the murky light.

They bore through her eyelids when she allows her eyes to shudder closed momentarily, forces herself to mull over Katya’s words until they’re ringing in her ears, playing on an irritating loop in her mind.

She knows Katya means well - she always does - she has Trixie’s best intentions and wellbeing as her first priority, along with bills and grocery shopping; she knows Trixie would be livid if they ever ran out pink wafer biscuits or green tea teabags.

But Trixie’s uncertain. She has commitments, an unspoken schedule that she tells herself to follow religiously. Her existence consists of work, Katya, work, and she doesn’t know if she has time to up and leave for a couple of months, even if she knows that she needs it.

“I have _work_ , Kat”. She settles for.

It leaves Katya frowning, the crease in her forehead deepening as she ponders Trixie’s response. She has a counter argument prepared instantly, is already spilling out her words before Trixie can blink, coerce herself into acknowledging Katya’s reasoning.

“Christmas break starts early December, yeah?-”.

Trixie nods.

“-And starts back mid January?-”.

Trixie nods once again.

“-We could do a six week vacation”. Katya finishes. Her suggestion is tentative, but Trixie looks contemplative. She’s almost convinced, Katya knows, can tell from how Trixie’s posture has relaxed, and how her eyebrows are less furrowed than they were moments prior.

Bringing her legs out from underneath herself, Trixie throws them across Katya’s lap, nestles her sock clad toes under one of the many cushions that they have scattered across the tan suede couch. She rests her chin comfortably on Katya’s shoulder, looks up towards her with a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips.

She licks over them, wraps one arm loosely around Katya’s waist, tickles at the strip of skin that’s been left exposed between her pants and her shirt.

“What’s your point here?”. Trixie asks, scrunching up her nose. Katya presses her lips to it, earns a playful squeak from Trixie who recoils, until Katya’s pulling her back into her side by her arm that she has slung around Trixie’s shoulders.

Trixie does so naturally, regardless, the magnet within her body being drawn to Katya’s, and brushes away the loose strands of hair that have fallen onto her face. She reminds herself to get a haircut; _soon_.

“I just ‘wanna, _go_ , somewhere, with _you_. Since mom I just-“. Katya shakes her head, albeit to herself. “-I need time away from this place”.

Trixie had already known, but she nods her head despite that fact - it’s seemingly irrelevant - and agrees silently with Katya. She nods some more, basks in Katya’s reaction that consists of baffled eyes and a gaping smile that reveals her teeth; prickled with the off-red lipstick that she’d worn earlier in the day to dinner.

Reaching for the television remote that’s balancing on the arm of the couch, Trixie switches the device off. The action submerges the both of them in further darkness, the only light emanating from a handful of tea lights that Trixie has littered across the surface of the wooden coffee table in the centre of the room.

Katya’s eyes reflect the flames, as do her cheekbones that are shiny from the day, the oil that has built up, caused her mascara to transfer to the porous skin beneath.

Trixie grins; she loves the sight.

“Where were you thinking?”. Trixie queries.

Katya’s beaming, cupping Trixie’s blushing face in the palms of her hands. She wants to kiss Trixie’s aforementioned cheeks, her lips that are glossy with balm, her forehead that’s puckered in the centre because of her curious expression. She wants to embrace her, too, but the position that they’re in is too awkward, too contorted and uncomfortable. She settles for pressing a singular peck to the corner of Trixie’s mouth.

It makes Trixie grin even further.

“Is that a yes?”. Katya checks.

“You knew it would be-“. Trixie chuckles. “-My question still stands, where were you thinking?”.

Clearing her throat, Katya shrugs. Trixie knows it’s not because she has no idea where she wants to go, visit and spend time, but because she’s certain of where, and doesn’t wish to seem over eager. It’s futile, because Trixie can already feel the excitement pouring from Katya, can see it forming a puddle of anticipated energy surrounding her.

Katya opens her mouth, runs her tongue across her teeth in preparation.

“How would you feel about Blue Hedges?”.

Trixie blinks; startled.

“Isn’t that just like, three towns over?”.

Katya nods tentatively - her head is beginning to hurt, she wants to dive under the covers of hers and Trixie’s bed already - and allows Trixie to begin peeling the blanket away from their overheated skin; she thinks she’s gotten used to the temperature of the room.

She can see where Trixie’s chest is flushed, peppered with a red flush that has Katya wanting to kiss at that part of Trixie’s body, too, down to her breasts and lower. She needs Trixie sleepily groaning her name, and thinks that she’ll do it given the chance, once their conversation is wrapped up neatly, tied off with a glittering ribbon.

“Remember years ago-“. Katya begins.

“-I told you about this milkshake shop there? It’s still open, and I still really ‘wanna take you. You can rent a little cottage there too and apparently it’s really cute over Christmas, with it being a market town and-“.

Trixie giggles briefly, yawns as she cuts Katya off unintentionally.

“Hey, if you’re happy with it, that’s all I need to know about it, _idiot_ ”.

Katya takes Trixie’s words as the only go-ahead she requires, and leans across to the wooden coffee table that’s illuminated with dwindling candles, picks up her chunky cell phone. She flicks away a beaded neckless that’s caught on the small antenna, and brings it back to the couch so that Trixie’s able to see the small, pixelated screen with her.

Trixie eyes her suspiciously, but Katya simply shrugs; _she’s had the phone number of the rental cottages memorised for weeks._

*****

Trixie’s sipping at her milkshake and Katya’s _happy_.

She’s sat in the booth across from Trixie, her eyes full of pride and adoration, because Trixie’s happy too, watching Katya pick at her second glazed doughnut. Trixie thinks that she must be feeling bloated - the sugary dough is dense and heavy, albeit fluffy and sweet - but the atmosphere keeps her feeling light; airy, almost.

The flooring consists of a pale, cream faux marble that contrasts with the teal walls, the glowing orange light bulbs that hang from the grey ceiling by chains that have been painted white. Katya can see where said paint is peeling, in some spots, where the links interconnect and brush against one and other, similarly to the leather booths that are cracking; red.

None of the colours match, she knows, they barely coordinate in the slightest, but they work, _somehow_.

She can hear the slurp of Trixie’s straw in the whipped cream that’s gathered at the bottom of her glass, the frosted sprinkles that have bled with prickles of food dye, and submerses herself in every minuscule sound that she can focus on.

The coffee percolator is brewing - it hasn’t stopped for more than a handful of minutes since they’d arrived - and the fryer is sizzling in the kitchen, along with the waitresses that Katya catches humming to themselves gleefully, occasionally.

She locks eyes with Trixie once again, and is glad that they’re here.

“What do you think?”. Questions Katya.

“ _Yeah_ ”.

Trixie licks at her lips, succeeds in wiping away the morsel of strawberry syrup that had been stuck to her top lip. Katya had noticed, but hadn’t dared tell her as she proceeded drinking, swallowing down the treat in hearty gulps that leave her throat bobbing, her tastebuds thriving.

“Yeah?”.

“ _Mhm_ , we should check out the market later”.

Katya agrees wordlessly, and clutches Trixie’s hand from across the table.

*****

The market is bigger than Trixie had imagined, though it’s _unmistakably_ festive.

There are popcorn machines located seemingly everywhere, with the scent emanating from every other stall that’s advertising the varieties that they sell. Some are labelled sweet, orthers cinema style and toffee, compared to the ones that state salty; they make Trixie shiver - she doesn’t understand salted popcorn.

 _It’s meant to be candy_ , she mumbles to Katya, as they stroll past venders selling mulled wine and roasted chestnuts, fragrant spices tickling at her senses as she spots a stand flogging hand woven stockings.

She makes a vague mental note to buy one before they leave, return to the one story cottage that they’re renting, but an hour later when her stomach is warm from aforementioned mulled wine, and the decorative hay is crunching beneath her feet, she still hasn’t.

Eventually, she’ll buy one - before she leaves, she decides - because Katya’s hand is laced with her own, keeping her skin toasty; if a little sweaty.

It’s blissfully distracting from the heckles of small children that are bustling around them, running rogue from their parents that attempt futilely to reign them in, make them listen when they insist on no more candy floss.

The sight makes Trixie grin. She’s loves children, more than she thinks Katya does as she observes her cowering, seeking to hide from the shrill screams by burying herself into Trixie’s side as they walk. It’s almost laughable, but Trixie refrains from disturbing the felicity that surrounds them; the pocket that she feels the universe has secluded them in, stitched around the both of them with a golden thread that prevents them from leaving.

Trixie allows a puff of air to leave her lungs, one that turns foggy as it meets the atmosphere. She likes it; doesn’t want to leave.

Katya’s wrapped in her burgundy coat, her free hand tucked into her pocket that’s filled with receipts, gum packets, and a lighter that she isn’t certain has worked for over a month. She has a mustard yellow scarf looped around her neck, too, one which’s fibres itch at her nose as Trixie’s hair brushes at her cheek.

It smells faintly of the cottage that they’ve been staying at, distinctly floral - Katya thinks it might be lavender - along with the cinnamon spiked wine. She inhales deeply, follows Trixie’s footsteps as she leads them to a bench on the edge of the market, the only one that’s vacant, covered by a navy blue canopy.

“This is, the most Christmassy town I think I’ve _ever_ seen”. Trixie breaks the silence.

It has katya blinking up at her with wide eyes from where she’s sitting on the oak bench, the chill of the wood managing to get to her skin even through her thick pants that she despises. They’re heavy, irritably so, and she’s already longing for the moment that she’ll get to take them off, dive under the duvet cover of hers and Trixie’s Queen sized bed back at the rental cottage that’s she’s grown a deep appreciation for.

Trixie’s still standing, and Katya finds herself wanting to laugh at Trixie’s exaggeration, briefly, though realises with a nod of her head and a nibble of her lip that she’s probably right.

 _Definitely_ right.

Katya’s been all over Europe, for the most part, to towns in the UK and France, even Germany and Iceland. They capitalise on Christmas and the entire seasonal period to the extent that Katya had felt like an imposter while she was there, clothed in her simple denim jeans and sweaters while most folk donned festive wear.

It’s stupid, she decides, because Trixie’s right when she says that this is the epitome of festivity.

Trixie sits down hastily, links her arm with Katya’s to the pleased grin of a middle aged woman hustling past the both of them, lugging a basket filled to the brim with homemade jams and chutneys.

Katya smiles politely back, but Trixie’s attention is already focused entirely on Katya, and her lips that are stained from the wine, her tongue that’s noticeably burnt from it. Her eyes are blood shot to match, happily and gladly exhausted from the day that’s been an amalgamation of tourism and familiarity.

“ _Katya_ ”. Trixie near whispers.

Her mumbles cause Katya to turn her head slowly towards her, allow Katya to take in how Trixie’s hair has strayed from its centre parting, and her eyebrows that are pushed in every which direction; courtesy of Katya’s musings.

She’s in awe of how Katya’s glassy orbs reflect the street lamps, and the fairy lights that dangle from sign posts and stall countertops, because Trixie has an unspoken, unconfirmed theory that the festive season is when her and Katya thrive at their best.

Katya’s taught her how to love the holidays, has assisted Trixie in helping her discover things about the once dreaded celebrations that she’s able to find joy in. She actively looks forward to the New Years, now, compared to how she used to loathe even the thought of it with her family.

It felt contrived, manufactured and obligatory beyond Trixie’s comprehension, but with Katya’s attitude and spirit, Trixie finds herself being unable to recognise the thoughts that would have circulated her mind once.

It’s all new. Different.

It’s _Trixie_.

“Thank you for all of this”. She adds, leaves Katya shrugging her shoulders.

“Thank you for coming with me”. Responds Katya, so that Trixie’s nodding her head.

She nudges at Katya’s knee with her own, rests her chin on the soft fabric of Katya’s coat covered shoulder. It’s a ticklish mix between tweed and cotton that Trixie’s not particularly fond of, but Katya had fallen in love with the cut of it, and how many pockets it had when she saw it hanging in the window of one of her favourite thrift stores.

She’d mentioned getting it for days, weeks, until Trixie had bought it for her as a Christmas gift; a whole year and four days ago.

“One day-“. Trixie begins. “-I think I _would_ like to leave”.

“Home?”. Katya swallows. She can see the cogs turning through Trixie’s skull, through her mass of hair that Katya’s noticed is thinning, albeit merely slightly. She begins raking her fingers through the untamed waves, allows Trixie to rest her weight entirely on her side that isn’t pressed to the arm of the bench.

“Yeah”.

“Really?”. Katya checks. It’s not necessary, but she does. She knows that Trixie’s almost ready - she’s been hinting ever since the day that Katya had suggested their vacation - and is easing Katya back into the idea that she had long set aside, also.

“I think I’d like to come somewhere like this”.

Trixie _would_.

“I uh - wouldn’t mind that”. Katya smiles softly, places her most delicate kiss to Trixie’s forehead that’s prickling with microscopic beads of sweat under Katya’s scrutiny. Her lips are left slightly salty from it, but Katya pays it little attention; Trixie’s already sitting up.

“You wouldn’t?”.

Katya shakes her head no, and pulls on Trixie’s hand until she understands, begins walking hastily back to the cottage where she’ll be able to wrap Trixie up in her arms and the bedding, kiss her and love her, with Trixie’s mouth tasting of strawberry milkshake and mulled wine.

It’s a taste that Katya becomes accustomed to instantaneously, she acknowledges, as she stops in her tracks, Trixie naked and beneath her on the bed.

Her thoughts repeat themselves in her mind begrudgingly - she feels like she’s become a _cliché_ of a _cliché_ \- but Trixie’s there, having remained Katya’s for all of this time. She swallows, strokes her knuckles across Trixie’s cheek that’s upturned in a contented grin.

“What?”. Trixie giggles nervously.

Katya shrugs, slips off her underwear as her eyes roam across Trixie’s body. She looks angelic, _beautiful_ , and it’s momentarily overwhelming, with her hair that’s tanned out across the pillow akin to a golden net, and the curtains that they’ve both neglected to close that allow the light of the street lamps to illuminate each dip and curve of Trixie’s body.

The goosebumps that appear on Trixie’s skin make her shiver.

“Nothing-”. Katya replies nonchalantly, kneels on the bed besides Trixie. She swallows once more. “-Lie on your stomach”.

Trixie laughs openly, and does as she’s told; welcomes Katya.

Welcomes _change_.

**Author's Note:**

> also feel free to come chat with me/send me asks on tumblr!! @ silvervelour ♡


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